That one last phone call Joe Biden always needs to make

“Before I make a final decision here, I want to get a read from the Hill,” he told his aides.

White House staffers got Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.), a friend of Biden’s and graduate of Yale Divinity School, on the phone. “Chris, it’s Joe,” the president said. “I need you to put your divinity school hat on for a minute and just tell me — do you think this is the right thing? Should we go ahead?”

After being briefed on the plan by Finer, Coons said, “As I understand it, Mr. President, I would proceed.”

Six days later, Biden announced the deal.

“He understands and respects that one of the most fundamental principles of a democracy is that you have to stand up in front of your constituents, explain your votes, explain your actions — and then be held accountable at the ballot box,” Coons said. “So he listens to people who have stood for election and who understand the difference between abstract policy and what happens in the real world.”

As Biden prepares to ask voters for a second term, The Washington Post is exploring three pillars of his presidential leadership. An earlier article scrutinized how Biden absorbs information, and a forthcoming piece will look at how he communicates with Americans.

Between the two is the responsibility at the core of the presidency: making some of the hardest, highest-impact decisions in the world.

This series is based on interviews with more than 100 current and former White House staffers, political allies and adversaries, and close friends of the president. The result is a rare portrait of a very private president, based on details and incidents that have not been previously reported. The White House declined to make Biden available for an interview.

‘You’ve never run for office’

Faced with a decision, Biden first presses his staffers for information at a granular level, probing for specific costs and timelines — seemingly driven, associates say, by a suspicion that aides are hiding something from him, or not giving him all of his options. Biden, aides say, often behaves like the senator he once was, wading into small matters they fear are not worth his time. He will insist on reviewing routine statements released in his name, for example, or demand a personal sign-off on mid-level campaign hires.

The decisions that reach the Oval Office are, by design, the most complicated facing the country. Biden has said as much, telling aides, “Look, all these decisions are hard.” Former president Barack Obama concurred, writing in 2020: “No decision that landed on my desk had an easy, tidy answer. The black-and-white questions never made it to me — somebody else on my staff would have already answered them.”

For all the memos and briefings, presidents are profoundly alone in making these decisions, and in that moment of truth, they rely on those whom life has taught them to trust. For Biden, that means people who have braved the campaign trail.

He brought several into the White House — including former congressman Cedric L. Richmond (D-La.) and former New Orleans mayor Mitch Landrieu — and appointed many to his Cabinet. He has often relied on them for matters outside their official portfolios, calling them into meetings they might otherwise not attend.

When nonpolitical aides offer political advice, in contrast, Biden is quick to remind them, “Hold on, you’ve never run for office.” Then he will often turn to someone who has or pick up the phone to find someone — Democrat or Republican, incumbent or retired, urban or rural. Most times, the president catches lawmakers unexpectedly, sometimes leaving them scrambling to find a quiet place to talk.

One afternoon in January, former senator Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.), who served as Obama’s secretary of defense, saw a call coming into his cellphone with no caller ID. When he answered, he heard the president’s voice, “Chuck, this is Joe.” After asking his former colleague about his Christmas, Biden launched into a 30-minute conversation seeking counsel about the conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East.

“Well, you and I haven’t always agreed on everything,” Hagel said. Biden, in Hagel’s account, laughed and said, “Well, you’ve never been bashful about that.”

The two then had a “pretty direct conversation” about the foreign policy decisions confronting Biden, Hagel said, declining to share more detail from the private talk. “I’m a Republican, he’s a Democrat,” Hagel said. “But that never made any difference.”

Hagel’s impromptu conversation came after an unexpected visit to the White House a month earlier. Hagel had lunch plans with John Kirby, a White House spokesman who had worked with Hagel at the Pentagon. When Kirby casually mentioned the lunch plans to Biden, the president told Hagel to stop by the White House after the meal at the Hay-Adams hotel.

Hagel ended up spending two hours in an impromptu meeting with Biden, during which they discussed a range of foreign policy issues. They were only briefly interrupted when an aide pulled Biden out to pose for a photo with the White House interns.

“He likes to take the pulse,” Hagel said. “It’s now more important than ever for him, because he’s a captive. He’s a prisoner of the White House. He can’t do what he used to do. He doesn’t have the same freedoms that he once had. I think it’s more important for him today as president to understand what’s going on out there.”

After serving in Washington for nearly five decades, Biden has repeatedly seen presidents embrace an idea crafted meticulously by some of the smartest experts in the country, only to see it blow up when it meets political reality.

Bill Clinton’s complex health reform looked good to scholars, but it withered under Republican attacks. George W. Bush sought to revamp Social Security along lines recommended by conservative think tanks, but voters rebelled. Donald Trump’s immigration plans met a fierce backlash from the public. And Obama, when Biden was vice president, backed a sweeping energy bill to cap carbon emissions that died a quick and ignominious death in the Senate.

Biden reacted by leaning heavily on members of Congress in pushing through his own legislative agenda.

During negotiations over the Inflation Reduction Act, a sweeping bill to address health costs and climate change, White House officials were struggling to cut the overall price tag. In an Oval Office meeting, an aide promised Biden that liberal lawmakers would remain supportive as long as funding for the bill’s “green bank” for clean energy projects stayed above $20 billion, even though that was less than they wanted.

A skeptical Biden immediately halted the meeting and called Sen. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), a leading climate advocate. “Ed, I’m here with my team. We’re just talking about this and wanted to get your read on it,” Biden said. Markey reassured him that the aide was right that he and other liberals would settle for $20 billion: “Get the deal that you can, Mr. President.”

Politicians have a unique feel for how ordinary Americans will react to big events, Hagel said. “If you’ve run for office before, you have that sense,” he said. “You wouldn’t have been elected and reelected if you didn’t try to understand what the people are thinking, what do the people want, what are the people’s attitudes.”

Some of Biden’s critics say the president goes too far in relying on longtime politicians, especially because the ones he tends to consult are, like him, older White men who have spent years in the Senate and are likely to reinforce his worldview. Liberal activists in particular complain that Biden is so focused on what seems politically possible that he fails to take the bold steps they say are necessary to confront urgent crises such as racial inequity and climate change.

That criticism has been especially notable recently on the Israel-Gaza war, as Biden has declined to call for a permanent cease-fire despite a growing push among Democrats and younger voters. Biden has consulted individuals such as Hagel about the conflict, but he has spoken far more rarely, if at all, with younger lawmakers who are sharply critical of Israel.

“I’ve always been told by my family that Democrats take a stand for the poor, that we uplift diversity and inclusion, that we listen to young voices and those that are most marginalized,” Rep. Delia C. Ramirez (D-Ill.) said. “Unfortunately, it’s very difficult for me to defend that when the president and the administration seems to leave key constituents out of decision-making that will directly impact their everyday life. And when I say that, as it pertains to immigration, as it pertains to a cease-fire, it’s difficult.”

President-senator

As these practices suggest, Biden’s presidency is notable for how much he retains the habits of the Senate, his political home for more than three decades. Of the 17 presidents who spent time in the Senate, Biden holds the record, with 36 years, far outpacing Lyndon B. Johnson, who spent 12 years as a senator — the most behind Biden.

Biden has conceded that the transition has not always been easy.

“I do think that has been made clear to me — speaking of polling — is the public doesn’t want me to be the president-senator,” Biden said at a news conference in January 2022. “They want me to be the president, and let senators be senators. And so, if I’ve made — and I’ve made many mistakes, I’m sure. 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. But I think that role as president is — is a different role.”

Despite that declaration, Biden clearly is much more attentive to members of Congress and other elected officials than his recent predecessors. Obama famously had frosty relationships with Congress, often dispatching Biden, his vice president, to Capitol Hill during tense negotiations.

Indeed, a gap has often yawned between the White House and the Capitol. Trump, the political newcomer; Bush, whose sole previous office was Texas governor; Clinton, the young Arkansan; Ronald Reagan, the actor turned politician; Jimmy Carter, the post-Watergate reformer — all had testy relations with Congress and sought wisdom elsewhere.

Biden does not. He ignited an uproar during the 2020 campaign by wistfully recalling how he got along with segregationist senators in the 1970s, even though they “didn’t agree on much of anything.”

The president also regularly lavishes praise on mayors and other local or state officeholders in ways that go beyond ordinary pleasantries.

“Now, some of you know I started my career as a county councilman. I ran for the United States Senate because serving as a local official was too hard,” Biden joked in February at the National Association of Counties Legislative Conference. He added, “That’s almost true. When folks have a problem, they know where you live, they come knocking on your door.”

Biden often tells the story of a constituent calling him when he was on the county council to insist that a dead animal be removed from her street, and how he had to do it himself. “You know, there’s no way to walk into the corner drugstore without being accosted immediately as to what’s going on. Right?” he said to laughter when addressing a group of mayors early in his presidency. “Well, so you know what it means to solve real problems, to be held accountable for the people you serve.”

Former House speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said Biden still has that itch to ensure his legislation is solving problems.

“These elected officials are very valuable resources — intellectually and emotionally — to him,” she said. “He knows why we’re passing legislation, and he wants to know it’s hitting home, that it is doing what it is intended to do.”

At one point early in his presidency, Biden contemplated sending funds to Central American countries where natural disasters, poverty and corruption had spurred migration to the United States. The idea carried political risk, since the regimes in some of those nations were hardly admirable.

The president picked up the phone and called then-Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.), who chaired the Senate Appropriations Committee, asking for his thoughts. Leahy expressed concern about some of the countries’ leaders, and he encouraged Biden to carefully read the intelligence on the region before making a decision.

Leahy said Biden took that advice seriously. “I’ve been there with every president from Gerald Ford to Joe Biden, and some presidents would make the flattering calls, and that’s always nice, but others made real calls and were asking your opinion and thoughts,” Leahy said. “I always felt that anytime President Biden called, he really wanted your opinion.”

As a manager, Biden has earned fierce loyalty from his aides, and most of his closest advisers have worked for him for decades. That loyalty often extends both ways, with the president averse to firing staffers, even when he threatens to do so or allies think he should. But that does not mean he trusts them fully when it comes to making decisions.

In late 2022, ahead of the first anniversary of the passage of Biden’s signature infrastructure law, he started to grow frustrated with his team implementing the $1.2 trillion program. He was hearing from governors and mayors about problems and delays, but in meetings in the Oval Office, staffers were assuring him the program was running well, talking in broad strokes about how much money was being disbursed.

Biden demanded detailed information on specifically which projects were being funded and which faced delays. He wanted names and places. His staffers did not have the answers, but they promised to get them.

Biden snapped at the aides, “I want this by the end of the week, or I’m going to fire somebody.”

He did not fire anyone. But the episode was another reminder of his distrust of broad assurances, sometimes even when they come from his closest advisers.

Former senator Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.), a longtime Biden friend who served with him in the Senate, said the president’s reliance on fellow politicians comes in part from his long experience representing a tiny state, where political blowback is never far away.

“You can’t be removed from the opinions of everyday people,” said Dodd, whose home state, like Delaware, is one of the smallest in the union. “They think that he knows them. And they’re very sure they know him.”