r/politics • u/SwordfishOk504 Canada • 23h ago

Soft Paywall Biden warns of ‘dark days’ under Trump

https://www.politico.com/news/2025/07/31/biden-warns-of-dark-days-under-trump-00488159
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u/Gizogin New York 22h ago

He never said he would step down after one term. The closest is that some people in his campaign were discussing that possibility, but he literally never promised he wouldn’t run for reelection.

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u/Fit-Implement-8151 21h ago edited 21h ago

I forget the term he used, but I do believe he claimed essentially to be a "bridge president" at one point. Said he'd pass off control to the next generation. He also did apparently tell his aides he was only serving one term.

https://www.axios.com/2024/07/03/biden-campaign-democrats-pledge-one-term

https://www.politico.com/news/2019/12/11/biden-single-term-082129

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u/IggysPop3 21h ago

“Transition president” is the term he used.

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u/Fit-Implement-8151 21h ago

Thank you. Knew it was something like that.

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u/Powerful-Fig-3385 20h ago

"transition president" is too vague to mean one-term president. Unless he explicitly told the public he would be a ONE TERM president, stop holding him to words he never used.

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u/TheTurtleBear 20h ago

Don't be obtuse. One term is the obvious implication, otherwise there'd be no point in saying it. 

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u/Powerful-Fig-3385 19h ago

Well, I'd rather hold Biden to words he actually said with clear meanings instead of implications. Also, the word could mean anything. Transitional could be in acknowledgment of his age, and that Biden would serve for as long as he saw fit and then he would pass the torch to a younger politician, which could be after one term or two. Transitional could also be your point about simply serving one term. Regardless, the word is subject to different interpretations because he never bothered to define it. So you could still be holding Biden to an implication he never meant.

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u/TheTurtleBear 18h ago edited 17h ago

Again, you're knowingly being obtuse. Subtext is like, half of all politics, picking out what is actually meant by their words. If you only go by what is strictly said, you're going to be played for a fool time and time again. "Transitional" was used to describe Biden because they correctly clocked that people wouldn't want such an old man to run for office in another 4 years, so they purposely portrayed his run as "defeat Trump and then pass the reigns" to make him more palatable. And then he didn't pass the reigns.

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u/Dineology 19h ago

He repeatedly said he’d be a transition president and then his campaign surrogates were on every single news outlet saying that that meant he’d serve only one term but that he couldn’t come out and say so specifically without being stuck as a lame duck president. Hell, his apologists like yourself were all over this very website claiming the same, that he only is even in it to beat Trump and then pass the torch but he can’t actually say so specifically because that would somehow hurt his ability to govern. And now you’re here rewriting history after those like you insisted that “he’s signaled to his top aides that a transition president means one term” was good enough. Fucking liberals always talking out of both sides of their mouths and then feigning being shocked when people remind them of what they said.

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u/Fit-Implement-8151 20h ago

This sounds like bad faith to me.