STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
President Biden soon finishes his term in a way that almost no other president ever has - Biden will be replaced by the president that he replaced. And that's a big factor in any assessment of Biden's legacy. NPR senior White House correspondent Tamara Keith covered Biden's entire term.
TAMARA KEITH, BYLINE: When Joe Biden entered the race for president in 2019, he was explicit about why he was running - to make Donald Trump a one-term president.
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PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: I believe history will look back on four years of this president and all he embraces as an aberrant moment in time. But if we give Donald Trump eight years in the White House, he will forever and fundamentally alter the character of this nation.
KEITH: Biden was elected in the midst of the COVID pandemic, promising stability and competence at home and abroad. And in his first two years in office, with Democrats in control of Congress, he was able to do a lot.
BEN LABOLT: He passed legislation that will have an impact for decades.
KEITH: Ben LaBolt is White House communications director. He points to the American Rescue Plan, the bipartisan infrastructure bill, the CHIPS and Science Act and the Inflation Reduction Act.
LABOLT: But many of these things will take years to come to fruition - the semiconductor factories opening, the transition to clean energy and all the jobs that come with that. And so there will be a lasting impact here long past the moment that the president leaves office in January.
KEITH: The unemployment rate is much lower than it was when Biden took office. Crime is down. Wages are up, but so are prices. And globally, alliances may be stronger, but war is raging in the Middle East and Ukraine. Biden has begun talking about how he hopes to be remembered.
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BIDEN: Let me say it's been the honor of my life to serve as your president.
KEITH: This was Biden speaking at a recent Democratic National Committee event in Washington.
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BIDEN: The one thing I've always believed about public service, and especially about the presidency, is the importance of asking yourself, have we left the country in better shape than we found it? Today, I can say without - with every fiber of my being, with all my heart, the answer to that question is a resounding yes. Yes.
KEITH: But the way Biden is ultimately remembered, after a 50-year career in public service, may well come down to what happened at the end. His decision to run for reelection, despite low approval ratings - that devastating debate performance against Trump, where Biden froze in a way that shocked even his close allies.
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BIDEN: With the COVID - excuse me, with dealing with everything we have to deal with - look, if we finally beat Medicare...
KEITH: Biden dropped out of the race and endorsed Vice President Harris with only about 100 days left to go. Presidential historian Tevi Troy says Biden's legacy flipped on Election Day - from the guy who defeated Trump to the one who enabled his return.
TEVI TROY: Biden went from the dragon-slayer to the one who brought the dragon back.
KEITH: Troy is a senior fellow at the Ronald Reagan Institute and has written several books about the American presidency.
TROY: The people of a conservative mindset just see him as a failed one-term president because they don't like what he did. The people of a more liberal mindset will look at him and say, he kind of enabled this whole situation that brought back Trump. So he's going to be facing the ire from both sides, and I think that will very much complicate his legacy.
KEITH: Veteran Democratic strategist Donna Brazile goes back with Biden more than 37 years and takes a more charitable view.
DONNA BRAZILE: I don't blame Joe Biden for the return of Donald Trump. This was a decision by the American people.
KEITH: She says the focus now may be on how Biden's political career is ending. But eventually, he will be remembered for what he did in office.
BRAZILE: Many of those projects are in red states, congressional districts led by Republicans. Biden doesn't care if it goes to a blue state or a red state. He just want to help everyone across the board. And that's been his history, and it's been his legacy.
KEITH: Historian Michael Beschloss says he expects Biden's legacy will forever be tied up with Trump's.
MICHAEL BESCHLOSS: The way that Joe Biden will be viewed in the future will have almost everything to do with the successes or failures of Donald Trump.
KEITH: He notes Trump has promised to reverse some of Biden's biggest accomplishments, like the green energy investments of the Inflation Reduction Act.
BESCHLOSS: If all those things are dismantled by Donald Trump, who chooses a very different route, then if Donald Trump is viewed by future generations as a success, it'll count against Joe Biden.
KEITH: But Beschloss cautions it's hard to know now how history will remember Biden. There's a reason historians usually wait several decades before digging into a presidency.
Tamara Keith, NPR News. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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