Jarrett Stepman
Appearances
Morning Wire
Biden to Trump: A Tale of Two Presidencies | 1.19.25
But it seems to be an outlier, too, because farewell addresses are usually a defining moment of any presidency, how to define his term. And Biden simply faded out, which I think is very appropriate for his presidency.
Morning Wire
Biden to Trump: A Tale of Two Presidencies | 1.19.25
I actually think that he will be remembered for being a frail man who represented crumbling institutions at the end of history. I think that really is what's defined the Biden presidency. He very much came into office as an institutionalist. He was supposed to represent the third term of Barack Obama, a sort of attempt to create a permanent Democratic majority through the executive branch.
Morning Wire
Biden to Trump: A Tale of Two Presidencies | 1.19.25
I think that that basically ground to a halt at the end of Biden's presidency. I think he was a president who was oftentimes, though, executively, I think, very strong. He was a president who was often missing in action, especially when the country was counting on him. When you had incidents like the failed Afghanistan withdrawal that really turned into a shambolic affair.
Morning Wire
Biden to Trump: A Tale of Two Presidencies | 1.19.25
President Biden was often nowhere to be seen and it was unclear where exactly the buck stopped in our executive branch. Nobody at the top seemed to have lost their job and business continued on as usual.
Morning Wire
Biden to Trump: A Tale of Two Presidencies | 1.19.25
I think that these were ominous signs about his presidency that was more ruled by the various executive agencies than the man at the top, than the man who was actually elected to be president of the United States. So I think his legacy was of an institutionalist and institutions that were losing favor from the American people and going in a direction that Americans didn't want.
Morning Wire
Biden to Trump: A Tale of Two Presidencies | 1.19.25
Again, I think that Biden was an institutionalist at a time where the confidence in institutions was crumbling. And I think that Biden's behavior, his frailty, his inability to actually be a strong leader in a time of, I think, great challenges to an old system that had been in place. will define his presidency.
Morning Wire
Biden to Trump: A Tale of Two Presidencies | 1.19.25
I think it was very symbolic, especially given the man who will eventually replace him, who two men who come from similar, they're similar age, they come from a similar age demographic, but represent two very different directions for the American people. And I think that Biden, really his legacy will be ushering in the age of Trump at the end of the age of Biden.
Morning Wire
Biden to Trump: A Tale of Two Presidencies | 1.19.25
I think the gap will actually have a positive effect on his second term. Now, everything will be quickened. It's almost like he'll be very quickly a lame duck president. That's obviously something that happens at the end of a presidency. It's certainly a unique situation in American history. This has only happened one other time with Grover Cleveland in the late 19th century.
Morning Wire
Biden to Trump: A Tale of Two Presidencies | 1.19.25
But this is actually, I think— A unique situation even in comparison to that because Trump didn't just lose a presidency. He was really up against many institutions that tried to squeeze him out to prevent him from ever coming back into office ever again.
Morning Wire
Biden to Trump: A Tale of Two Presidencies | 1.19.25
That Trump was able to triumph over all those forces, both the political institutional forces and also the media forces that tried to keep him out of the White House. The fact that he triumphed given those challenging circumstances makes this a unique return to the White House. And I think it actually very much empowers him.
Morning Wire
Biden to Trump: A Tale of Two Presidencies | 1.19.25
It may end up being a sort of blessing in disguise because I think that Trump, the first time around, you could say that his presidency was maybe a bit on accident, that Democrats had simply gotten lazy or careless in allowing this man to become president. I think especially given the headwinds that were against him and the fact that now Trump comes in more popular than he's ever been. He comes in
Morning Wire
Biden to Trump: A Tale of Two Presidencies | 1.19.25
With closer to what you consider an electoral mandate, he actually didn't just win the Electoral College, he seems to have won the popular vote as well, which he certainly has touted. I think it makes him a lot stronger than in 2016, especially given now his experience actually running the White House and being a statesman. Whereas before, he had very little experience in politics.
Morning Wire
Biden to Trump: A Tale of Two Presidencies | 1.19.25
He was a complete neophyte. He was a man of business and entertainment. But now he's a man with quite a bit of experience in running the executive branch with his own outlook on how to run things. And so I think he's going to hit the ground running faster this time than he did last time and have his own institutional support as opposed to 2016. Mm-hmm.
Morning Wire
Biden to Trump: A Tale of Two Presidencies | 1.19.25
I think it's going to be much more marginalized in comparison to that time. Again, because Trump comes in with so much more of a mandate this time around. And Trump is not going to be surprised about the hashtag resistance this time around. In fact, I think he's keenly aware of it. It may even become a defining domestically as far as what he does in the White House, part of his presidency.
Morning Wire
Biden to Trump: A Tale of Two Presidencies | 1.19.25
I think he's going to use a lot of tools, including something called Schedule F, to remove recalcitrant bureaucrats. I think that in many cases, this election was defined about Trump's kind of populist uprising against the bureaucracy.
Morning Wire
Biden to Trump: A Tale of Two Presidencies | 1.19.25
I know that Biden Democrats tried to define themselves as standing with democracy, but it really was an uprising against the bureaucratic fiat that I think was ruling the country during the Biden administration. And I think that the bureaucrats who were so empowered during the Biden presidency, I think they've lost a lot of power.
Morning Wire
Biden to Trump: A Tale of Two Presidencies | 1.19.25
And I think that there's gonna be a lot less tolerance within the Trump administration for that kind of resistance. And I think the American people are fed up with it, too. So I do think that there's going to be a sort of revival of a kind of popular self-government. And I think that will define the Trump presidency.
Morning Wire
Biden to Trump: A Tale of Two Presidencies | 1.19.25
Yeah, I think something that's going to happen immediately. I think he's going to restore a lot of the immigration and border policies of his first term, including the Remain in Mexico policy. I think that is going to be absolutely a priority.
Morning Wire
Biden to Trump: A Tale of Two Presidencies | 1.19.25
I think something that's going to be worked on in joint with the legislature is undoing some of Biden's executive decisions in the bureaucratic fight, especially when it came to redefining gender through Title IX, which was, I think, a very big issue, I think an underrated issue of the Biden presidency.
Morning Wire
Biden to Trump: A Tale of Two Presidencies | 1.19.25
There's already a bill in the House to undo that, to undo those changes that happened under the Biden administration. And of course, there's going to be, I think, in his first term, his first 100 days in office will also reimplement tax cuts from his first administration.
Morning Wire
Biden to Trump: A Tale of Two Presidencies | 1.19.25
But I think that those will be the big priorities, especially the border, which is, I think, that was a big theme of his first term. But now seems to be even more of a crisis, especially given the fact that under the Biden administration, there was a massive surge of illegal immigration.
Morning Wire
Biden to Trump: A Tale of Two Presidencies | 1.19.25
A lot of even Biden's supporters to turn against him with a lot of chaos in American cities, a lot of chaos across the country, not just at the border.
Morning Wire
Biden to Trump: A Tale of Two Presidencies | 1.19.25
I think his cabinet picks are very interesting because all of them, while they have some disagreement on various issues, all of them represent a critique of those various institutions. If it's somebody like Pete Hegseth at the Defense Department, This is a man who comes in not as a four-star general.
Morning Wire
Biden to Trump: A Tale of Two Presidencies | 1.19.25
He comes in as a man who has experience as just a regular soldier criticizing the woke DEI direction of the agency. You have somebody like Kash Patel, a man who was not part of the FBI, now being potentially put at the head of the FBI in criticism of the way that the FBI has operated during the Biden presidency. And so he really has created a team of
Morning Wire
Biden to Trump: A Tale of Two Presidencies | 1.19.25
of outsiders, many of whom have very impressive resumes, but they are sort of anti-institutionalists. And I think that this time around, Trump is less dependent on the sort of conservative Republican infrastructure that exists in Washington, D.C., and now has his own team that's going to define his presidency. And I think that that is a big difference from the first time around.
Morning Wire
Biden to Trump: A Tale of Two Presidencies | 1.19.25
It really felt like in this address that this was the Friday night news dump, farewell addresses. I really felt that it was a very low energy, which I think defined especially the last part of his presidency.
Morning Wire
Biden to Trump: A Tale of Two Presidencies | 1.19.25
I think Trump has a much more clear and defined direction for where he wants to take his presidency and the issues that he wants to prioritize. I think all of his cabinet picks represent Trump's various feelings about the issues in those various policy areas.
Morning Wire
Biden to Trump: A Tale of Two Presidencies | 1.19.25
Interestingly enough, I think that a big part of his legacy is actually going to be his foreign policy. It's something that's an underrated part of Trump. I think he was a very strong president in foreign policy during his first term.
Morning Wire
Biden to Trump: A Tale of Two Presidencies | 1.19.25
But I think you can even see in the days before he actually enters the White House how much he's prioritized issues like acquiring Greenland, reacquiring possibly the Panama Canal, talking about a revival of a sort of Monroe Doctrine.
Morning Wire
Biden to Trump: A Tale of Two Presidencies | 1.19.25
ending conflicts around the globe there's been a deal to end the war between israel and hamas and potentially in the future and i think it will be a priority ending the war in ukraine and i think that trump actually will make foreign policy a priority because
Morning Wire
Biden to Trump: A Tale of Two Presidencies | 1.19.25
I think the way that Trump looks at it, if there is going to be a golden era of the United States and he is going to make a lot of changes domestically, that means that he must prevent any kind of global catastrophe, any kind of potential war with China. So I think he is going to create a more realist perspective in American foreign policy and focus on China.
Morning Wire
Biden to Trump: A Tale of Two Presidencies | 1.19.25
containing the threat of communist China, which represents a real threat to the United States. I think the appointment of Marco Rubio at the State Department, I think, really defines that. And I think that will be a huge part of his legacy that is very underrated, especially when people, I think, mostly focus on his domestic outlook.
Morning Wire
Biden to Trump: A Tale of Two Presidencies | 1.19.25
I think his foreign policy is actually a huge part of what Trump does as president, what he does best.
Morning Wire
Biden to Trump: A Tale of Two Presidencies | 1.19.25
I think it is a massive challenge. As I said, that Biden really represented the last part of crumbling institutions at the end of history. I think that Trump represents potentially a great man and a return to history. Now, that means many complicated and dangerous things. I think we're returning to an era of great power conflict, something that we hadn't experienced in a very long time.
Morning Wire
Biden to Trump: A Tale of Two Presidencies | 1.19.25
He focused on things like the spread of misinformation and perhaps the censorship of online media, which I thought was a very peculiar take for a president trying to define his presidency, his one term in office. And I felt that the speech itself had very little impact, which I think is very fitting for the Biden presidency that seems to have wound down into nothing very quickly.
Morning Wire
Biden to Trump: A Tale of Two Presidencies | 1.19.25
The United States has had no challenger peers since the end of the Cold War. Suddenly, we have that again. I think there's a lot of questions about the end of the Cold War, the post-Cold War consensus that Americans have come to regret some of the things that have happened since that time. And I think Trump has an enormous challenge ahead of him.
Morning Wire
Biden to Trump: A Tale of Two Presidencies | 1.19.25
It's certainly too much, I think, for simply one man to be expected to restore confidence in America and continue into this new American century. But I think Trump is uniquely placed. I think he represents a pivot point in American history that And I think if he does actually pull this off, he will certainly be remembered as one of the great presidents in the country's history.
Morning Wire
Biden to Trump: A Tale of Two Presidencies | 1.19.25
I think that there's no question. I think the contrast between him and his predecessor will be enormous. Now, whether that ends up being a spectacular catastrophe or spectacular revival, I think is really up to him and how he treats issues and how he performs in office. But I think he is at a point in which he could have enormous impact over the trajectory of the United States and really the world.