Barack Obama says Joe Biden is 'finishing the job' his administration started

US President Joe Biden is “finishing the job” begun by Barack Obama, the former President told the New York Times on June 1. In an interview with the media outlet, Obama said that 90 per cent of the people who were in his administration are now continuing and building on the policies they talked about during his tenure. The former president said that whether it’s the Affordable Care Act or climate change agenda and the Paris (climate deal), the Biden administration is essentially finishing the job. 

During the interview, Obama also considered why in 2016, after his eight years in power, so many voters plumped for hard-right successor Donald Trump. He spoke about how Trump interrupted the continuation of his administration’s policies and still benefited from the economic stability and the growth his team had initiated. Further, the former president even mused about Biden’s much-discussed ability to reach voters, particularly in post-industrial midwestern states, who voted Obama then switched to Trump. 

Biden ‘will have impact’ on polarised political landscape 

Obama said that people knew that he was left on issues like race, gender equality and LGTQ issues. But, he added that the reason he was successful campaigning in downstate Illinois or Iowa was because Biden, born in Scranton, Pennsylvania, could “reach some of those folks”. Moreover, the ex-president also noted the drastic effects on states because of the collapse of local newspapers and the proliferation of misinformation via right-wing and social media. 

Obama even went on to say that a successful Biden administration “will have an impact” on a deeply polarised political landscape in which Republican states are restricting voting among communities of colour and making it easier to overturn results, which Republicans in Congress block a bipartisan commission to investigate the attack on the US Capitol by Trump’s supporters. “Does [success for Biden] override that sort of identity politics that has come to dominate Twitter and the media, and that has seeped into how people think about politics?” Obama asked. “Probably not completely. But at the margins, if you’re changing 5% of the electorate, that makes a difference,” he said. 

(Image: AP)