it was a presidential campaign that started at a moment of chaos in america, with the backdrop of a global pandemic which would ultimately claim a million american lives and then attention also focused on the murder of george floyd, which sparked civil—rights protests the like of which america hadn't seen for decades. i can't breathe! whenjoe biden ultimately did beat president donald trump in november of that year, he called it a battle for the soul of america. we must restore the soul of america! our nation is shaped by the constant battle between our better angels and our darkest impulses. but that battle, forjoe biden at least, ended with a disastrous debate performance in atlanta in 2024, when he was up against a man he said was a genuine threat to democracy. um... dealing with everything we have to do with, uh...

look... if... we finally beat medicare _ and that led directly to this announcement a month later. so i've decided the best way forward is to pass the torch to a new generation. in this episode, we want to considerjoe biden�*s legacy at home in america. what did he achieve? what did he want to achieve that he failed to do? and how will he be remembered by history? welcome to americast. americast. americast from bbc news. hello, it's sarah here in the bbc�*s bureau in washington. and it's anthony, next to sarah here in washington. now, also with us today is anita dunn, and this is a really great guest for us. i'm excited that we're going to get to talk to her. she was a senior adviser to joe biden in the white house, but she's been around american politics for a while. yes, she has, dating back to the clinton years, even. she is someone who is steeped in democratic politics and was very influential in the biden administration and in shaping the biden

administration's communications messages over the past four years. and she's a pretty close friend of the bidens as well, so she must have a view on what this last year has been like forjoe biden, not just what the last four years as president have been, but personally what it's been like for him. yeah, biden has described her as being invaluable to the white house, so that shows you how important she is. ok, so she's the perfect person to unpack the last four years for us. but before we get to that, we heard from joe biden himself what he wants to set out as his legacy in that oval office address on wednesday night. he skipped through some of his domestic achievements. he didn't spend as long on them as i thought he might have done. but i thought what was really interesting was he said that he'd sown the seeds and it would take some time for them to grow and for us to see the impact of his legacy. yeah, that's something that joe biden has mentioned a couple of times now in interviews over the past few weeks, that...almost regrets that some of the infrastructure

spending, some of the economic stimulus took too long to reach the people, and therefore the american people didn't feel the effects of it, didn't give him credit for it, and that's why the democrats lost. i was talking to an economist from the university of pennsylvania for a piece i wrote earlier this week, and he said it was too focused on shifting corporations and giving incentives, as opposed to putting money in people's hands and giving them tangible social programmes that can change their lives. it was a huge infrastructure bill that he got passed, and it's going to do everything from rebuilding roads, bridges, airports, broadband infrastructure, a huge number of projects, which i presume will survive through the trump administration, because when they've arrived in lawmakers�* districts, even some of the most maga republicans, they welcome the spending in their own particular district. but some of the other things he claimed, like a huge amount of spending and emphasis on climate change and new technology to combat climate change, is there any reason to assume that this legacy will go on now that donald trump is about to take office? with republican control of congress, that's going to be the first thing

on the chopping block. things like incentives for electric cars, tax credits to purchase electric cars, all this green spending. the republicans are going to be looking for sources of money in order to order to fund their extension of the trump tax cuts from the first presidency and to pay for military spending and other things. so that is going to be on the chopping block from the very beginning. so, you know, a lot of whatjoe biden is claiming as his legacy could be undone over the next four years. and i think when we're looking back in history and saying this is whatjoe biden achieved, a lot of it is going to depend on how effective republicans are at tearing it all up in the coming days. so he's got really low approval ratings at the moment, i think probably about as low as any outgoing president has not marked up. and is history going to be kinder to him, do you think? i mean, you know, it was only a week ago he was giving the eulogy at president carter's funeral, and he looks better in hindsight, i think, than he did when he left office. will the same be true ofjoe biden? i think a lot has to depend on what donald trump does

for the next four years. you know, if all of the dire warnings thatjoe biden and the democrats made about trump destroying democracy and tearing up all these norms and fundamentally changing american government, then i think you will look back and seejoe biden as a failure, a failure because he allowed donald trump to come back. now, if donald trump's presidency in the next four years are conservative, a few things here and there, and then say a democrat wins four years after, and it's just continuing the kind of swing back and forth in american politics between the centre left and the centre right, then you might look back and say, "well, joe biden did a good job in investing "in america, in changing the emphasis back towards "domestic manufacturing, he did a good job handling "the russian invasion

of ukraine, assuming that of ukraine," assuming that ukraine doesn't get wiped off the map in the next four years. i think there'll be criticisms about the gaza war from the left and the right, we'll see how that comes out, but at least he's leaving now seemingly with a ceasefire in place. so, yeah, with a little bit of time, i think some perspective, he might bejudged better, but right now it is contingent on a whole lot of things that are going to happen in the next four years. what he has and hasn't achieved, his disastrous attempt to run in 2024, it's all tied up with the fact that he's the oldest president in american history, and, you know, he may always remain that, because after this experience, people might not try to get into the white house in their 80s again. yeah, the farewell speech wasn't delivered well. i mean, it was the way joe biden sounds these days, which is a lot of stumbles, a lot of little coughs, just without a whole lot of energy. i actually was at the white house on monday in the oval office when he had a briefing on the california fires. and, you know, seeing him on tv, you know, with the make—up and the angle is one thing — seeing him when i was kind of off

to the side, i mean, he looks even older in person than he does on television. and he, ithink, himself, in one of the recent interviews, said he thought he could win, he thought he could win this election. he still thinks he could have beaten donald trump, but he wasn't sure he would have had the energy to make it four years, which, you know, great acknowledging that now — he probably should have come to terms with that a year ago. but i think even he is acknowledging the toll that the presidency takes and the difference between 78 and 82 is big — the difference between 82 and 86 is huge. i mean, who knows what condition he will be in? who knows what condition donald trump will be in? yeah, he's no spring chicken. yeah, he'll be about biden�*s age when he leaves office. so i'm very happy to say that anita dunn is with us here now. thank you so much for coming in to talk to americast. thank you for having me on this morning. you've had a very long relationship withjoe biden and the biden family, haven't you? working in and out of the white house, when did you first get to know him? well, i first met then senator biden when i

was a junior staffer in the united states senate, but i didn't really work closely with him until then candidate 0bama picked him to be the vice presidential nominee. i was a senior adviser to the 0bama campaign, so worked closely with biden and his staff during the campaign, and then when i was communications director in the 0bama white house, so. what is thejoe biden that you know like, maybe differently from our public perception of him? well, i thinkjoe biden has always been one of those people whose public and private personas are not all that different. and a lot of politicians are very different in private than they are in public. you hear, "oh, this person's so much better in small groups. "oh, if you just sat down one on one." butjoe biden is whojoe biden is, and i think that the strength ofjoe biden is his ability to connect with people, individually, one on one, you know, on a rope line, in a small

group, in a large group. so that's always been his strength — as a senator, as vice president, presidential candidate and as president. and that empathy that you see that he clearly has for all americans and what he would call ordinary middle class americans. he is someone who, unlike many of our presidents, didn't attend an ivy league university, who attended a state school, who comes from a very middle class to lower middle class background in terms of his financial situation, and whose empathy, i think, comes both out of his own personal tragedies throughout his life, and also his just connection with the kinds of people that make up the majority of americans. and yet he's always been very ambitious and always had, well, what we would call in scotland a good conceit of himself, he's always been, always been sure of himself, shall we say? yes, he has, yes. and pretty determined to be president and convinced that, you know, he had some kind of unique qualities that would make him a wonderful president. the first time people started talking aboutjoe biden running for president,

i think, was in 1984, and this was... well, he himself said he considered challenging jimmy carter for the nomination in 1980. ini980, so... but people really started talking about him as a potentially serious candidate in 1984, and there wasn't an election cycle after that where he wasn't seen as a potential candidate. so will he be remembered as great a president as he thought he was going to be? i mean, there's an argument that says, if in �*84, �*94, 2004, he'd been elected president, he might be remembered more kindly. you know, he's going to go out of office with relatively low approval ratings, relatively low favourability ratings. but, as we know, presidents never look as good as when they're out of office and people are looking at them and saying, "well, now that i look at it, "look at all the things they accomplished, look "at those things that have made

america so much greater "today than it was when he was in office." and i think this is someone who... ..he�*s been in public service, in federal office, with the exception of two years, for 52 years, over 50 years in public service. he's always played the long game, so. and so what is it that history will remember him more fondly for? i think they will look at him as a president who came into office at a time when his nation was crippled by a pandemic that, you know, would go on to kill over two million people, an economy that was flat on its back, with millions of people out of work, and an attack on our democracy shortly before he was inaugurated as president that was the most serious attack on our democracy arguably since the civil war. and that the country he leaves four years later is one that is healthy, where the economy is producing jobs and is growing faster than any other industrialised nation, and where he didn't achieve the unity that

he wanted, but where, as yesterday's mid east ceasefire agreement shows, the kind of norms of democracy of the current administration and the future administration working together to reach that agreement in the mid east, where those norms still hold. so i think that those four years are going to be seen as hugely consequential. i mean, the pushback on that would be, i mean, yes, he saved a lot ofjobs, created morejobs in this four years than a lot of presidents did over two terms, but his stimulus created the very, very high inflation which caused a lot of suffering for a lot of americans who could no longer make ends meet and probably, you know, caused donald trump to be re—elected. and, yes, he took over after that january 6th moment when it looked like democracy was in peril, but he allowed donald trump back into the white house, so he didn't really save it, you know, for posterity. well, i think that is certainly what people say. if you look at what happened

in the world coming out of the pandemic, the united states was certainly not the only country that suffered from inflation and economic shocks. i mean, the entire world had gone through these horrible economic shocks. and there's no question that inflation and really the average person in the united states going to the grocery store and thinking, "i cannot believe how expensive "these things are, because i remember how much they cost before," there's no question that that is still something that weighs heavily on families across this country. the cost of rent. we've seen all kinds of economic disruptions during this presidency. but what we've also seen is the foundation laid for enormous economic success in the future, whether it's the long—needed investments in infrastructure in this country — in better airports, better train systems, better roads, better bridges. all of those things that make the economy work and that make people's lives better. or the investments in science and innovation, the bipartisan chips act to bring those things to the united states,

so if, god forbid, there were supply—chain disruptions in the future, we wouldn't feel them as badly. the investments in clean energy technology and clean energy, which will help power all of those ai centres in the future. all of these things are investments in the future, and i think investments in american workers and the american people. they may not have paid off immediately. they certainly didn't pay off politically in 2024. but that doesn't mean, in the long run, that these investments don't produce significant results. and those will be joe biden�*s victories. those are things that take a long time to come to fruition, and he said that himself in his oval office address, and what you say is true, but how much of it is trump—proofed? how much of it will continue through the next four years in order to deliver the benefits over the longer term? and how much will donald trump be able to dismantle? well, i think it would be highly unusual if president—elect trump and his administration tried to undo any of the infrastructure investments.

trump himself tried for four years to get a big infrastructure bill passed, and he failed, where biden succeeded. but these are things that are necessary for the country. they're in every congressional district in this country. the same is true for a lot of the investments in the inflation reduction act. many of those clean energyjobs that have been created, those manufacturing jobs, are in places that support donald trump. it is also difficult to see that president—elect trump is going to come into office and want to raise prices on pharmaceuticals, that he is too astute a politician to even consider wanting to do that. and the chips investments are ones that, again, were bipartisan, and where you have very strong support, because they're also things that allow us to position against china. so, many of these things are things that are going to be very hard to roll back, if he wanted to. it's also difficult for him to sell his achievements or his message when, i mean, let's be frank about it, he looks so old.

voters watching him on television are just wondering when he's going to stumble over the next sentence and watching him shuffle in and out of rooms, and he just doesn't look like somebody who's going to be able to tell you about a bright new future of tomorrow in america. was it a big mistake to insist on trying to run in 2024? you know, the president made his decision to run for re—election because he thought there were things that he wanted to get done still, there were unfinished big pieces of his agenda, and he thought he was the best person to get those done. with a lot ofjustification, given how successful that first term had been. his ability to do the job has never wavered. he is... and in his mind, i think he's still that 29—year—old who ran for the senate for the first time back in 1972. there's no question that, you know, the age issue was one that the american people had real reservations about. and there's also no question in my mind that it hurt his ability to project the optimism

that is, at his fundamental core, what he's about. should the people closer to him have been more frank about saying, "this is not a good idea, mr president"? you know, i would never discuss confidential conversations that were had with the president, but i don't know why there's an assumption that there weren't frank and open discussions with him. every single poll that came back the entire time he was president showed that this was the overwhelming issue and concern that people had. the reality is that he is still, in three presidential campaigns, the only democrat who defeated donald trump, and he thought he could again. one of the reasons donald trump won was the economy, as we've discussed, but another big issue was immigration, and the record numbers of people coming across the southern border. joe biden did, you know, latterly take action. there was a bipartisan bill put together that donald trump deliberately scuppered because he didn't want... he wanted to be able to use it as a political weapon in the election. and then there was an executive action taken, which actually

hugely reduced the numbers of migrants coming across the southern border. had that been done three years earlier, we could be talking about a very different situation. was it a big blind spot in this white house? you know, i think many countries, yours included, have seen the immigration issue play out in different ways, as the world has just changed so dramatically. this was a tough issue for the administration. it was one where we continually asked congress for more money to secure that southern border, and congress was unwilling to give it to this president, where, as you pointed out, a bipartisan broader solution that addressed so many of the issues was negotiated and was scuttled by the republicans because they didn't want to give biden a success and where finally he took executive action, which, um...was necessary but, again, without the funding we really need for the southern border. i think that it is, you know, an unfortunate example of how issues get caught in the political process here in the united states sometimes,

and where problems that need to be addressed are not addressed, because one side or the other sees a political benefit or a political detriment to actually addressing the problem. one of the things that biden i think really did as president was try to rise above some of that, and to do things that were not going to help him initially but in the long run were the right thing for the country. you can't rise above an issue that voters care about so much, though, and it was an issue in 2016, it was an issue in 2020, it didn't come out of nowhere during biden�*s term, and it was one that he did not seem to pay attention to. well, i don't think that's really a fair characterisation. in 2021, we had a real problem with unaccompanied minors crossing the border, and with the fact that the trump administration had left this administration with almost no resources to deal with that problem. and i think that of all the issues in the administration, there's probably not one that took more time and more effort, both in terms of dealing

with the core problems that were causing a lot of the southern hemisphere issues, dealing with the actual border problems, dealing with the migration into the cities, and dealing with the criminals who are smuggling people in. at the end of the day, you know, it is easy to look back and say things should have been done differently. but there was not a huge migration problem at the beginning of this administration. there was a huge problem based on what had happened in the previous administration. so i would say that, you know, had we moved faster, it probably would have been better, but that the president felt strongly it should be done in a bipartisan manner, as it was the last time this country had major immigration reform, and that he tried very hard to accomplish that. he did get an agreement, and at the end of the day, it turned out not to be good enough.

and one of the more controversial things he did was to pardon his son hunter, and to pardon him over a ten—year period for crimes that haven't even been investigated or charged potentially yet. will that damage his legacy? i think people will look at the totality of this legacy, and i've been clear on this pardon, that i don't think hunter biden should go to prison. there's no question, had he not been the president's son, that, you know, somebody would have made a plea bargain. these are not crimes that people go to jailfor, and, in fact, they're crimes that people are rarely prosecuted for, that, you know, people plead guilty, they pay a fine, they move on. i think that the way and the timing was unfortunate. i think this is the kind of pardon that you do with a whole bunch of other pardons, with a whole bunch of commutations, and that his doing this first was probably a mistake. and it was an extraordinary accident of history that meant that last week we saw president biden delivering

the eulogy at president carter's funeral. yes. another democratic one—term president who is remembered more fondly in history now than he was when he was defeated by ronald reagan and left office. joe biden is unlikely to have as long a post—presidency asjimmy carter had, to put it politely! but will people be re—evaluating his legacy in the same way they have carter's? i would hope so. although i think that there are many people who look atjoe biden�*s legacy already and say that's an extraordinary legacy for four years. you know, i was an intern working forjimmy carter, it was my first job in politics, and, you know, watching last week was very emotionalfor me, because i do remember the extraordinary venom that was heaped on president carter, by people in his own party as well as by the republicans, and the ridicule, the fact that he wasn't allowed to speak at conventions

for years after his defeat. and i think that, you know, when you look at president carter's tenure as president, it was also a meaningful and consequentialfour years in which he did what the american people always claim they want presidents to do, which was to make decisions based on the merits of those decisions, not necessarily on the politics of those decisions. now, we can all see that doesn't always turn out so great, politically, but i think this president also has done that, and that history looks on those presidents fondly. thank you so much for coming to talk to us on americast. 0h, listen, thank you so much for having me on, i hope you'll have me back and good day to everybody. it is the beginning of a new administration, a new chapter in america, and a new chapter for americast. until then, see you soon.

hello. while some parts of the uk got to see the sunshine right the way through to the end of the day on saturday, for others it was a grey, gloomy start to the weekend. a pretty chilly one as well. you can see the extent of the cloud on saturday afternoon and underneath it, temperatures in parts of lincolnshire hovering around freezing for much of the time. northern ireland with a few brighter breaks, up to around 11 degrees. and that split remains as we go through into the start of sunday. mildest conditions in the west. temperatures close to freezing in many areas whether you've got the cloud or not, so maybe down to —4 in parts of north—east england a bit more cloudier compared with saturday. best of the breaks in the cloud in northern parts of scotland, northern ireland and actually a few brighter breaks out towards the west of england and wales possible. temperatures, though, not going to recover a huge

amount through the day, except, that is, in the west — around 6—10 degrees here, but we will see the cloud thicken up later. western isles northern ireland could see some outbreaks of rain into the evening. patchy light rain or drizzle towards the south—west as well. thatjust edges a bit further eastwards as we go through sunday night and into monday morning. to the east of it, again, chance of some frost around as we start the brand new week, but it will be another fairly cloudy start for many on monday. this time though, a greater chance of some rain or drizzle across parts of the west, and that may even fall as a bit of sleet and snow over the higher ground. not a huge amount around many places to the south and eastjust about dry. best of the sunshine on monday, still in the north—east of scotland. one thing on monday though, temperatures will start to lift just a little bit compared with what we've seen through the weekend. into tuesday, we've still got a fair bit of cloud, maybe a few brighter breaks as we start to pick up the breeze, but the clouds thicken up with a weak weather front straddling central areas. some rain around the coast, maybe a little bit of sleet or snow over the likes of the pennines. some heavier showers into

the north—west of scotland. and then through wednesday and thursday, the cloud amounts will still generally dominate. now, it's to the south where we could actually see some longer spells of rain push in linked into this weather system, which is going to bring a miserable few days across parts of portugal and western spain. but as that clears through another batch of rain for thursday and then turn our attention to the west, the jet stream's waking up for the end of the week, and what that could signal later in the week is a potentially stormier period, with much more in the way of rain, a bit of hill snow, and potentially some disruptive winds. take care.

live from washington, this is bbc news. donald trump has arrived in washington ahead of his inauguration on monday. tonight he is hosting a fundraising dinner at his golf club in virginia, where is expected to speak to the media. we will bring you that live. ahead of his flight to washington, trump told reporters he will most likely give tiktok a 90—day reprieve from the ban that comes in on sunday. tiktok says it will be forced to go dark without the white house's intervention. and hours before the ceasefire in gaza is due to start, benjamin netanyahu says israel reserves the right to resume

fighting if further negotiations collapse. hello, i'm christian fraser. donald trump has arrived in washington ahead of his inauguration on monday. at a fundraiser tonight in virginia, there is a dinner and firework display for the invited guests, in one of several events scheduled before he takes the oath on monday. but it will all look very different to how it was planned. the temperatures here are due to plummet in the next 24 hours. there is frantic work underway to move the inauguration indoors, with the set now being built in the capitol rotunda. meanwhile, thousands of anti—trump demonstrators have been marching through washington to protest against the policies of this incoming administration. 0rganisers had expected 50,000 people. about 5,000 turned up.

the people's march — it was previously known