Forty years before Joe Biden’s anemic debate performance, Ronald Reagan delivered his own wobbly appearance on the debate stage, sparking widespread concerns about his age, health and ability to serve another four years.
It was Ken Khachigian, said to be Reagan’s favorite speechwriter and one of only two campaign aides who accompanied Reagan on Air Force One throughout the 1984 reelection race, who played a key role in beating back the criticism. He did so in no small part by helping the 73-year-old Reagan — the oldest American president at the time — find his voice in what ended up as a landslide victory over Walter Mondale.
So what does he think of Biden’s current predicament? In an interview with POLITICO Magazine, the now-79-year-old Khachigian discussed how Reagan bounced back from his stumble as well as how Biden can try to regain control of his own narrative and resist the Democrats trying to push him aside.
But he also talked about why it might be very difficult for Biden’s inner circle to advise the president to step down from the Democratic ticket. Khachigian, who recently authored the book Behind Closed Doors: In the Room with Reagan and Nixon, understands the dynamics of internal White House deliberations as much as anyone, and he acknowledged the possibility that Biden’s closest aides could be more focused on protecting their own interests than those of the party or even their beloved president.
“Power is an enormous elixir,” he said.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
President Ronald Reagan’s first debate performance in 1984 led to considerable Democratic and media flak about his age and health. How seriously did the campaign take the criticism and what was the thinking about how to respond?
We took it seriously, but we knew what the problem was. The problem boiled down to the debate preparation. He was over prepared. They chose the wrong people to prepare him in [presidential assistant] Dick Darman and [Office of Management and Budget Director] David Stockman.
We had mock debates in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building up in Room 450 and I witnessed that. Stockman took too much pleasure in taking on the role of, as Nancy [Reagan] said, brutalizing Reagan and took away his self-confidence. Plus, they stacked him full of briefing books, tried to stuff his brain, which I think they probably did with Biden in this first debate as well.
After that first debate, yes, we were taken aback a little bit. And what happened was we refocused. Just a few days later, we had a whistle-stop tour using Harry Truman’s same train car, the Ferdinand Magellan, that he used in 1948. And instead of the mushy campaign speeches that he was giving, I was assigned to write a kick-ass speech for Reagan using, for the first time, Mondale’s name.
President Reagan, of course, was 73 years old at the time of that debate — and President Biden is 81. Having successfully worked through that experience, what about the Biden campaign’s current approach and messaging strikes you as effective, and what strikes you as ineffective?
What strikes me as ineffective is that they’ve got him glued to the teleprompter. I call it the tyranny of the teleprompter. And what I don’t understand is that Biden was a master of the Senate. The Senate is a debating society, and Joe Biden had years and years of experience debating without notes and being very verbal and everything else, and all of a sudden they put him into the presidency and glued him to a teleprompter.
I think they’ve taken away his self-confidence to a great degree. I saw a few weeks back where he talked to the WNBA champions from last year — it was no more than a three-minute talk in the East Room of the White House — and they had him talking with a teleprompter, and that could have been done just with a few moments of preparation in the Oval Office, saying, ‘Here are the folks, and here are a couple of names you ought to mention.’ I think they’ve chained him to a teleprompter all through the years, and he’s become so accustomed to that he’s lost his flair for the extemporaneous.
Since the June 27 debate, there’s been an intense focus on Biden’s insular inner circle and the role it has played in stage-managing the president to keep the signs of the president’s aging under wraps, as well as the role it may be playing in convincing the president to dig his heels in.
An argument can be made that this has affected the party’s ability to hold the White House and it could permanently tarnish his legacy. At a time like this, what colors the thinking of a president’s inner circle?
They’re not just being protective. I think they’re playing a lot of offense as well.
I think they’re saying to themselves, “Look, we’re tired of being beaten around, and we’ve come this far, and we’re adamant in terms of what we want to do. We’ve scratched and fought and climbed up the greasy pole to win the presidency. We took our setbacks in 1988 [Biden’s failed presidential run], we took our setbacks in 2016 when we stepped away from it and let Hillary take a run at it, and we finally won the presidency, and we’re not going to let people beat us back right now.”
I think they’re circling the wagons because they feel that they’ve won the hard way to the presidency, and they’re going to stand their ground and not back away.
What role do you think Biden’s past campaign experience plays in shaping their thinking? Here I’m thinking not just of his past defeats but also the comeback in 2020 after things looked grim in the primary and Biden was counted out.
I think he feels that this has happened before. “I overcame it, and I can do it again. … They’ve counted me out before, and I think that they’re pretty short sighted in thinking that I can’t pull myself up by my bootstraps one more time, and I can do this, and I will.” I think there’s some fight in the guy and some self-confidence in the fact that he thinks he can bring it off one more time.
Where does the president’s family fit into the equation? By most accounts, Jill Biden and his family have urged the president to hold fast, and seem to be occupying a fiercely protective role, just as Nancy Reagan seemed to.
It seems to me that Mrs. Biden, the first lady, takes on the role that I saw Mrs. Reagan play many, many times in 1980. There was a time in the campaign in 1980 where we were having stutter steps in the campaign, and things were moving a little slowly. And President Reagan wasn’t one to be forceful in terms of cracking the whip and making things go. When she joined the campaign there in the first week of October, she’d make sure things started happening.
I referred to her then as the chief of staff of the campaign, taking on a role like Bob Haldeman did for Richard Nixon in his campaign in ‘68 and then in the presidency. And I think to some extent, Jill Biden is sort of the chief of staff, unofficial chief of staff, helping set the ship right when it has to be done, making things happen that the president can’t do himself. And it’s just a matter of having somebody to instill confidence and keep the president’s spirits up and make him feel like he can do this.
I don’t know if he’s had down times or feels dispirited, but I saw in that press conference Thursday that he had some moments of energy and fight left in him. Maybe part of that is his family lifting his spirits. I think his inner circle is probably saying, “Boss, we’ve been through this before. We’ve been together for all these years, and we’ve fought off these guys. And look at the opposition. The opposition is something we’ve overcome many, many, many times, and there’s no reason we can’t do this again.”
At some point does the inner circle become part of the problem? Because at some point, they’re not just debating Biden’s future, they’re debating their own, right?
That’s true too, and they might be making a mistake. They might be making decisions that don’t serve the president’s interests, and maybe they’re serving their own interest and maybe they’re clinging on to something that just benefits themselves. Power is an enormous elixir.
If Joe Biden loses the presidency, all these fellows around him, they’ll have law practices to go to, or lobbying practices, and they’ll make money, they’ll write books and they’ll be able to go on the speaking circuit. But as Gov. Mario Cuomo said, once he left office, it’s like dying. Your hair keeps growing, your fingernails keep growing, but the phone stops ringing.
One minute you’re in the Oval Office, and you’re steps from the president and reporters are calling you all the time, power brokers are calling you, Hollywood stars are calling you, and you’ve got the White House operator that can connect you with the world. You’re on Air Force One, and you’re flying on Marine One and eating in the Executive Mess, and the next thing you know, you’re out of the White House and you’re just an average schmo.
People don’t understand how strong the magnetism of the presidency is. Joe Biden, for example, is able to go on Marine One to Delaware and wake up in the morning and have a butler present him with a clean suit and a cup of coffee. Or be on Air Force One and lean over and push a button and have this steward come in and present you with whatever drink you like. It’s a whole different world, and it spreads out to those around you.
Even if they see him losing a step and think that maybe he shouldn’t be staying in the presidency, they don’t want to let it go.
Based on your own experience with numerous presidential campaigns, what’s your best guess for how they view those who are going wobbly on them, the House members who are jumping ship, and the donors who are withholding funds?
I’m sure that there’s huge anger and massive animosity towards those who are jumping ship.
And I think one of the resentments he has or that they have collectively, are Obama’s people. They sort of shoved Biden around when he was vice president, and now they’re out there peeing all over Biden and not helping in his direst need when for eight years, Biden was the loyal servant to Obama and to the party.
If you think about Biden in those eight years, he was out there stumping for Democrats all over the country. I think about this the same way President Nixon did back in the years when all the people left the sinking ship, because he had done so much for the party through the 50s and the 60s, when he campaigned all over the country — helping candidates, whether they were moderates, liberal, conservative, and then all these people he had raised money for and helped campaign for and put them into office, helped get them patronage, helped get them judgeships and everything else, and next thing you know, they’re turning on them. It’s the same thing for Biden.
From a presidential campaign practitioner’s standpoint, does the situation seem salvageable for the president? Does it seem like Biden can hang on and ride it out to the convention?
I think he can ride it out. I think he is riding it out. [Last Thursday’s] press conference was not the best thing that happened to him in the world, but he salvaged it. The press conference turned at the end towards foreign policy issues, and again, he wasn’t brilliant, but he didn’t step on his toes.
If [Biden’s team is] smart, they’re going to start using some hardball tactics. They’re going to start using patronage issues. They’re going to start talking about judgeships. They’re going to start talking about appointments that some of these congressmen and senators are sitting on, that they’ve been asking the White House to get through, and they still own the delegates.
Now whether or not he can make it through the four-year term of the presidency, or whether he can even win, that’s another question, but I think he can make it through the convention.
Let me ask you a hypothetical question. You’re sitting there in your office, the phone lights up, and it’s Joe Biden. He asks for your advice. What would you tell him?
You’re going to have to play some hardball with some of these House members who are going soft on them, some of the senators who are going soft. The other thing is I would start studying and do a little bit more like he did [in the press conference]. You’re going to have to show that you can handle the press.
I think he’s got to show more flexibility and get away from the damn teleprompter and just act like Joe Biden. Get some self-confidence back. If he could do that, I think it would benefit him quite a bit.
But he does have to get on the road, just like Reagan did. I thought he would pull the same kind of tactic that Reagan did after we had that bad debate in Kentucky and get on the road and do sort of a Harry Truman, give-him-hell campaign.
I think that teleprompter is like iPhones are to young kids. They’re sort of hypnotized by it. I think it’s a bad thing for him, and he could just be the old Joe Biden, like he was in the Senate and hang loose. There’s some risk involved in that, but maybe he’s going to have to take some risks to win his self-confidence back. But they’ve got to be less controlling of him, and maybe just let Joe be Joe.
