White House mostly mum after Trump victory

The White House has taken its show largely behind closed doors after Vice President Harris’s stinging defeat to Donald Trump.

Harris has all but disappeared from the public eye, jetting off to Hawaii after a few scarce appearances around Washington following her massive loss on Nov. 5.

President Biden, meanwhile, managed to keep the press at arm’s length during a recent six-day foreign trip and held meetings and events at the White House upon his return that normally would have been at least briefly on camera.

The lack of engagements give a window into what a lame duck White House may look like in its final months.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre was pressed this week about Biden not taking questions from the media during his trip. She suggested that he could “engage” more before the new year but the president is known for largely avoiding questions from the media.

“I get that you all want to hear from the president. I get that. I understand that,” she said. “And I'm not saying that you won’t. You will. He will certainly continue to engage with all of you.”

The lack of visibility for Biden could prove problematic for his legacy in the final months of his administration, Michael LaRosa, former special assistant to the president and press secretary to first lady Jill Biden said.

“I really wish he would start talking to the press, holding news conferences, and engaging with the media more frequently as I always believed he should be doing,” LaRosa said. “But they appear to think they can shape his legacy by producing scripted or rehearsed events for the next few weeks.” 

“Given his unceremonious and slapdash passing of the torch last July and the results of the election, one would think he would want to start framing his legacy on his terms, in his own words, and telling his story,” he added.

Biden stunned the political world when during a June debate he gave such a poor performance that members of his own party ultimately convinced him to drop his reelection bid. He threw his support behind Harris, whose campaign skyrocketed out of the gate but resulted in another Democrat, and woman, losing to Trump’s brand of brash politics.

Since the election, Harris has largely stayed out of public view aside from a concession speech she gave the day after, an appearance at Arlington National Cemetery on Veteran’s Day and a brief stop at the White House during a foreign leader visit.

She left for Hawaii on Tuesday and hasn’t been seen or heard from since. 

As president of the Senate, Harris, who can cast tie-breaking votes in the upper chamber, was also missing earlier this week when Senate Democrats pushed through Biden’s judiciary nominees before Republicans take over.

The White House was also faced with questions this week about Harris and the appearance of her being on vacation while hundreds of Democratic staffers braced for being jobless in January when the GOP will take over the House and Senate as well.

“The vice president has taken time off to go spend time with her family. I don’t think there's anything wrong with that.  I think she deserves some time to be with her family and to have some downtime,” Jean-Pierre said. “She has worked very hard… for the last four years, and her taking a couple of days to be with her family, good for her.”

Back at the White House, Biden this week held a meeting with Democratic North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper to discuss hurricane relief efforts there. Such meetings typically come with a brief on-camera appearance but the White House did not make public that the meeting was occurring until later in the evening after it was over.

It marked an unusual way to convey a closed-door meeting about a topic the president addressed multiple times publicly, including during a visit to Cooper’s state.

That same day, Biden also held a private ceremony to give the Medal of Freedom to former Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards. Those ceremonies are typically public – and make for compelling photo opportunities – but Richards was diagnosed in 2023 with a glioblastoma, a rare and aggressive form of brain tumor that Beau Biden died from. Such ceremonies can be requested to be private by families of the recipient. 

Biden was back on camera on Thursday when he held an event for the Boston Celtics. But by Friday, the White House again went dark for much of the day. Biden and first Lady Jill Biden hosted a dinner on the South Lawn - but officials were silent about what the dinner is in honor of for days. The answer ultimately came in something else that White House should have touted in their favor, which was to thank longtime supporters.

Despite Biden being on his way out, staying largely out of the spotlight will do little to tame increased scrutiny on his age and mental fitness, including questions being raised about his ability to serve out the remainder of his term.

Some Republicans suggested Biden resign when he dropped out from the 2024 race in July but those calls are being renewed since Harris’s loss. Pollster Nate Silver publicly asked this week if Biden is competent enough to be the president.

 La Rosa said that Biden not being in the public eye doesn’t do him any favors.

“If we can't hear from him and if we don't see him actively making the case for himself in unscripted and unchoreographed situations, the age issue would never go away,” LaRosa said.

LaRosa noted that when Biden wasn’t active with media during the Democratic primary in 2019, the first lady stepped in before the COVID-19 pandemic forced him into a “bunker” during the general election. LaRosa suggested the first lady could push Biden to be accessible again before January.

“The bunker mentality did not serve him or the presidency well and I hope in these final weeks, the first lady steps in again, lets him off the leash, and let Biden be Biden at the end of his long career,” he said. “He didn't come this far by being shy. Why now?”