When President Biden walked through the Capitol on Monday with mere minutes left in his presidency, a reporter asked how he was feeling.
“Well,” he replied as he made his way throughthe corridors together with his predecessor and successor, Donald Trump, the man he has repeatedly said is a danger to democracy.
Aides and longtime allies said the soon-to-be former president’s face and demeanor told a much different story.
“He’s clearly the opposite of well,” said one longtime aide who reluctantly watched Monday’s Inauguration, like a mandatory trip to the dentist.
“Anyone who has worked with President Biden knows that this was a painful moment for him,” the aide said. “But he did it because he loves this country.”
The aide and others interviewed for this story explained that the day was tough to stomach on a few different levels.
For starters, the last thing Biden wanted was to see Trump return to the White House, even as he offered a “welcome home” greeting to his rival when he entered the residence on Monday morning.
In fact, one of his last actions as president was to proactively pardon five members of his family, including his siblings. The pardon highlighted the immense suspicion Biden harbors against Trump. And he said he sought to prevent the “baseless and politically motivated investigations” against his relatives.
“He knows what this man is capable of doing,” the aide said. “It’s not lost on him.”
Biden also issued a pardon for members of the House panel that investigated the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol, another statement of sorts by an exiting president about his successor.
Still, Monday was also particularly agonizing for Biden because he wholeheartedly believes he could have defeated Trump again, as he has told allies privately and journalists publicly in recent days.
And he hasn’t been able to entirely shake the feeling that he was betrayed by leaders in his party, including Speaker Emeritus Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), whom he had considered an old friend.
“He believes that if not for the party acting the way they did, he would be in his second term,” another ally said. “He hasn’t gotten over that entirely and I’m sure he’s thought about it today.
“We will hear about this moment in the memoir of his post presidency,” the ally said.
In an interview with the Washington Post last week, former first lady Jill Biden also acknowledged her regret about the way the situation turned out for her husband.
“Let’s just say I was disappointed with how it unfolded,” she said in an interview. “I learned a lot about human nature.”
Allies say Biden was faced with those same emotions in the final weeks of his presidency.
“It isn’t just that it’s the end of his life of public service,” the first ally said. “It was an abrupt ending and one they wouldn’t have seen coming a year ago.”
On Sunday, the day before he left office, Biden spent the day in South Carolina along with Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.), who helped him win the state during the 2020 primary that would ultimately catapult him to the presidency.
“I’m not going anywhere,” he told a congregation at a local Baptist church in the state, as they applauded.
Steve Schale, a longtime ally who ran a pro-Biden superPAC, predicted that the entry to private life for Biden — who has served the country for more than 50 years, beginning as the youngest senator to serve — would be tough.
“It’s hard on everyone, even those who are grounded,” Schale said. “Coming to D.C. as America’s youngest senator and leaving as its oldest president is one heck of a run. He’s human like all of us and I suspect he’s spending a lot of time just thinking about that arc.”
At the same time, Schale said, “He’s such a big believer in fate that I suspect while reflective, he’s also seeing it in that way.”
