“If I made a mistake, I’m used to negotiating to get things done, and I’ve been, in the past, relatively successful at it in the United States Senate, even as vice president,” Mr. Biden said in a news conference on Wednesday. “But I think that role as president — is a different role.”
“The public doesn’t want me to be the ‘president-senator,’” Mr. Biden said. “They want me to be the president and let senators be senators.”
It was a striking public admission for a politician who has been in public life, first as a senator of Delaware and later as vice president, for nearly half a century. For much of his first year as president, Mr. Biden preferred to wax about politics being “the art of the possible,” citing his history of negotiating in the Senate. (On Wednesday, he still could not resist reminding reporters that he had successfully prodded Strom Thurmond, the late Republican senator and segregationist, to sign onto a reauthorization of the Voting Rights Act in 1982.)
Mr. Biden and his advisers say they are not giving up on passage of a scaled-back version of his $2.2 trillion social spending bill, which has been stymied by fierce opposition from Republicans and two senators in his own party. During the news conference on Wednesday, Mr. Biden said he was confident he would be able to pass a package that includes some of its provisions on energy and the environment, but said he needed to focus more on engaging with voters.
One memo to Mr. Biden from Kate Bedingfield, the White House communications director, promised a revamped focus on amplifying the president’s accomplishments, such as the passage of the coronavirus stimulus package, the infrastructure law and the distribution of millions of vaccines. The White House must also focus on achievements that make a difference in people’s lives, like jobs created through the stimulus and infrastructure packages, according to the memo.