On January 20, 2025, Donald Trump will be sworn in as the 47th President of the United States, marking the end of Joe Biden’s tenure as the 46th. Biden leaves office with the second-lowest approval rating of a President leaving office, with only Donald Trump’s first term being lower. This also marks the end of Biden’s more than fifty years of public service. With only less than 24 hours left until the inauguration, here’s a look back at Biden’s presidency.
President Biden delivers his farewell address to the nation from the Oval Office. Source: AFP via Getty Images
The Good
Let’s start with the good. The first two years of Biden’s presidency were generally good in terms of domestic policy. Biden rejoined the Paris Climate Accords on his first day in office. He was also able to utilize narrow Democratic majorities in Congress effectively to pass the American Rescue Plan (a multi-trillion dollar stimulus package designed to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic), the bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (a ten-year plan to fund infrastructure projects across the United States), and the Inflation Reduction Act (which included the largest climate investments by the U.S., a price cap on insulin, and a provision allowing Medicare to negotiate drug prices). Other significant legislation he signed into law include:
- Respect for Marriage Act (bipartisan law that repealed the Defense of Marriage Act and codified same-sex and interracial marriages in the U.S.)
- Bipartisan Safer Communities Act (first federal gun control law in nearly three decades)
- CHIPS and Science Act (bolstering the semiconductor and manufacturing industry)
- Honoring our PACT Act (expanding healthcare for veterans)
- Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023 (law averting the debt ceiling crisis of 2023)
Biden signs the American Rescue Plan Act into law.
In the realm of foreign policy, Biden restrengthened relations with traditional U.S. allies, something his predecessor shunned during his term. He approved raids that killed the leader of the Islamic State and the leader of Al-Qaeda. In 2022, Biden rallied Western nations behind Ukraine following the Russian invasion, authorizing billions of dollars worth of aid and weapons to be sent to the country. In 2024, he negotiated with Russia the largest prisoner exchange since the end of the Cold War, with 26 individuals including journalist Evan Gershkovich and former US Marine Paul Whelan being released.
President Biden with South Korean president Yoon Suk Yeol and Japanese prime minister Fumio Kishida at Camp David.
President Biden meeting Ukrainian refugees in Warsaw, Poland, following the Russian invasion of Ukraine
It is worth mentioning that the U.S. under Biden saw the strongest economic recovery of any G7 nation post-COVID. It broke a 70-year record for low unemployment and saw the creation of over 16 million new jobs, the most of any first-term U.S. president.
The Bad
Of course, the Biden administration is an inherently flawed one. The president’s approval ratings started dipping in August 2021, and have generally remained below 50% ever since. The trigger event for this was the botched U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, which saw the Afghan government’s collapse and the Taliban seizing power once again. During this withdrawal, 13 U.S. service members were killed in a suicide bombing at Kabul Airport. While the withdrawal ended the War on Terror – the longest conflict America had ever been involved in – it ended quite poorly.
President Biden meets with Afghan president Ashraf Ghani and Afghan chairman Abdullah Abdullah, a few months before the fall of Afghanistan to the Taliban
What defined the Biden economy was the recurring theme of rising gas prices and inflation. Even as the U.S. economy rebounded following the COVID-19 pandemic, voters did not see much of an improvement as they looked at inflation and gas prices, which broke records themselves. As a result, even if the president had zero control over these prices, Biden’s approval ratings remained low for the remainder of his tenure.
Another event in foreign policy that significantly impacted Biden’s approval rating was his handling of the war in Gaza. Following the October 7th attack in 2023, Biden condemned Hamas and vowed significant military support for Israel. This, however, led to drops in Biden’s approval among young and Arab-American voters, which at this point had been solidly Democratic groups. This was due to the significant increase in civilian casualties in Gaza, which pro-Palestinian supporters argued was a result of Israel purposely bombing civilians. The US-Israel relationship would strain over the course of the war, with Biden’s administration becoming more wary of Israeli military conduct. However, Biden continued to authorize billions of dollars worth of aid to Israel. Even when a ceasefire was finally achieved between Israel and Gaza in January 2025, it came too late for voters to see – a recent poll saw 56% of voters saying President-elect Trump deserved credit for it.
President Biden meets with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Biden’s immigration policy was also yet another flaw of his presidency. With record arrivals of migrants to the U.S.-Mexico border in 2023, Biden faced criticism from Republicans and even some Democrats for his supposed mishandling of the “border crisis”. The Republican-controlled House impeached Biden’s homeland security chief Alejandro Mayorkas in 2024 (although the charges were dismissed by the Democratic-controlled Senate later on) and later voted to condemn Biden’s conduct on the border. A bipartisan group of senators assembled a bill that would reduce incentives for migrants to cross, including an emergency provision that would close the border if crossings surpassed 5,000 per day. With Donald Trump’s encouragement (and concern that the GOP would be handing Biden a win on the border), Republicans by large would later kill the bill. While Biden later carried out executive actions that drastically decreased border crossings to 2020 levels, the border was still a defining issue of why voters rejected the Democrats in the 2024 election.
U.S. southwest border encounters throughout Biden’s presidency, based on CBP data
Perhaps the most defining characteristic of Biden’s presidency was his refusal to step down. Biden, who would turn 82 at the end of his first term and would turn 86 at the end of a hypothetical second term, announced his re-election bid in 2023 despite voters’ persistent concerns about his age and health. Biden had been dogged by various gaffes during his presidency, such as talking to dead people, falling down stairs, or fumbling basic words. This has resulted in the 46th President becoming the subject of much ridicule. A 2024 report by Special Counsel Robert Hur into Biden’s conduct regarding the handling of classified documents would also comment on apparent memory gaps the president experienced. Following a disastrous debate performance with Trump, flailing polling numbers, and numerous calls by prominent Democrats to drop out, Biden dropped out of the race in July 2024, endorsing his vice president to run a relatively short and eventually unsuccessful campaign for the presidency.
President Biden addresses the nation following the announcement of his withdrawal from the race in 2024
In his lame-duck period, Biden would do himself no favors by reneging on his promise not to pardon his son Hunter, which he did in December 2024. Hunter Biden had been convicted on various gun and tax evasion charges, and the president gave him a sweeping pardon, claiming that Hunter’s prosecution had been politically motivated. Nevertheless, this pardon led to bipartisan criticism of Biden.
The Judgment
In the end, it is too soon to say how history will judge the 46th President of the United States. Joe Biden had presided over sweeping economic gains and was able to get a lot done in his first two years. However, these actions are overshadowed by his age, inflation, immigration, and various other factors, and therefore were largely unable to resonate with the American people. History may come to judge him more kindly as it did with Jimmy Carter, who left office with similarly low approval ratings.
One thing is for certain, though. Biden has come to office promising an end to Donald Trump and Trumpism. He had promised to “restore the soul” of America and prove that Trump was just a fluke. However, Biden fumbled and gaffed through his presidency, and four years after voters chose him over Trump, they picked Trump to succeed him. This is a repudiation of the entire Biden mantra and a humiliating end to Biden’s more than fifty years in politics. This, in my opinion, represents President Biden’s biggest failure.
Emil Ordonez, a rising college freshman, is the founder and editor-in-chief of Polinsights. He has been deeply passionate about politics and history since learning every U.S. President at the age of five. He was compelled to start this blog after meeting many people who were misinformed or had become apathetic about how society worked. He hopes to provide factual knowledge and insights that will encourage people, especially the young, to get more engaged in their respective communities. In his free time, he edits for Wikipedia and makes maps for elections. He aspires to work in Congress or even the White House in the future.
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