President Biden speaking in the White House’s Diplomatic Reception Room in February.
Photo: Samuel Corum/Bloomberg via Getty Images
On Tuesday, Time magazine published a long interview with President Biden almost two months after the publication spoke with Donald Trump. It’s part of a spate of recent interviews the president has granted in the wake of criticism that he has shunned traditional sit-down interviews with mainstream outlets. In addition to Time, the president recently sat down with Yahoo Finance and CNN’s Erin Burnett while continuing to speak with less conventional interlocutors like Howard Stern. (He continues to snub the New York Times.) The Time conversation, which took place last month, touched on the conflict in Gaza, January 6, and Biden’s age. Here, some of the notable moments.
Asked about Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s motivations around the ongoing Israel-Hamas war, Biden demurred at first. But Biden appeared to suggest that a common view of Netanyahu — that he wants the war to drag on to ensure his political survival — wasn’t unfounded. “I’m not going to comment on that. There is every reason for people to draw that conclusion,” he said.
Biden said he and Netanyahu disagree on what will happen with Gaza after the war. “There needs to be a two-state solution, a transition to a two-state solution. And that’s my biggest disagreement with Bibi Netanyahu,” he said.
Biden also said he doesn’t believe that Israel is using starvation as a weapon of war, as suggested by the International Criminal Court, which is seeking arrest warrants for Netanyahu alongside other top officials of Israel and Hamas. Biden did say he thinks some of Israel’s actions are inappropriate. He compared the situation to America’s extended occupation of Afghanistan, advising Israel to learn from that example. “Don’t make the mistakes we made. And they’re making that mistake, I think,” he said.
Time attempted to get Biden on the record about what his administration would do if China were to follow through on its threats to invade Taiwan. When asked how U.S. forces might be used in such a situation, the president said, “It would depend on the circumstances.”
The magazine followed up, pressing Biden on whether he would deploy troops if necessary. “Not ruling out using U.S. military force. There’s a distinction between deploying on the ground, air power and naval power, etc.,” Biden responded.
Biden was then asked if that would entail firing from bases in Japan or in the Philippines, but he declined to go into further specifics. “I can’t get into that. You would then criticize me with good reason if I were to tell you,” he said.
The conversation then turned to one of Biden’s biggest weaknesses: his age. The president, who turned 81 in November, would be 86 by the end of a potential second term. (Trump turns 78 later this month.) Biden said he hadn’t considered not running for a second term and expressed his confidence that he can do the job in a rather aggressive way. “I can do it better than anybody you know. You’re looking at me — I can take you, too,” he said.
When asked what he would tell American voters who are concerned about his age, Biden said, “Watch me. Look, name me a president that’s gotten as much done as I’ve gotten done in my first three and a half years.”
Biden relayed a familiar anecdote about attending the 2021 G7 meeting in England, where he told the assembled leaders that “America’s back” only for French president Emmanuel Macron to quip, “For how long?” He said the world’s leaders have expressed concerns to him about the possibility of Trump winning in 2024.
“There’s not a major international meeting I attend that, before it’s over — and I’ve attended many, more than most presidents have in three and a half years — that a world leader doesn’t pull me aside as I’m leaving and say, ‘He can’t win. You can’t let him win,’” Biden said.
He continued, “My democracy and their democracy is at stake. My democracy is at stake. And so name me a world leader other than Orbán and Putin who think that Trump should be the world leader in the United States of America.”
