Senator Chuck Schumer, the typically chatty New York Democrat and majority leader, often resorts to repeating a single terse phrase when he doesn’t want to answer a question.
“I’m with Joe,” was his mantra for two long weeks in July as he was barraged with questions about whether President Biden needed to withdraw from the presidential race after his devastating debate performance.
Mr. Schumer took the same approach on Tuesday as he tried to avoid passing judgment on the fraught subject of Mr. Biden’s full and unconditional pardon for his son Hunter.
“I’ve got nothing for you on that,” he told reporters at a news conference, repeating the statement three times in a row.
The awkward response reflected a painful reality that has begun to set in during the waning days of Mr. Biden’s term: His relationship with Democrats in Congress, which once served as the solid backbone of the party and his presidency, is badly frayed, and perhaps irreparably broken.
As Mr. Biden prepares to leave the political stage in 47 days, many of his former colleagues have been quick to criticize his decision to pardon his son, or, as in Mr. Schumer’s case, they have allowed all that they are not saying to defend Mr. Biden do the talking.
It is a breakup that has been years in the making, but its first visible signs emerged over the summer, when Democrats in Congress played a crucial role in forcing Mr. Biden out of the presidential race. Ever since, they have been living together in a strained marriage made all the weaker by Democrats’ bitterness about losing control of Congress and Mr. Biden’s own lame-duck status.
With the pardon over the weekend and the hostile response, Mr. Biden and his former colleagues have made it clear they are done with each other, a depressing end to a political marriage that once held much promise.
“The pardon is simply a resentment delivery vehicle, like dressing on lettuce,” said Philippe Reines, a veteran Democratic strategist who helped prepare Vice President Kamala Harris for her sole debate against Donald J. Trump.
The reaction to Mr. Biden’s fatherly act of clemency only brought out the bitterness underlying an already damaged relationship.
“On the one hand, there is an appreciation on the part of a lot of Democrats for the things he accomplished,” said David Axelrod, a former top adviser to President Barack Obama. “On the other hand, there’s been a lot of heartache at the end here that has disturbed a lot of people, in which he appeared to be prizing himself over the party and even the country. You’re seeing that tumble out here.”
The criticism of the pardon, Mr. Axelrod said, was “a free throw for people who think they can gain political advantage” from criticizing a departing, unpopular president. “But there’s also genuine concern and anger about the way the last year went down.”
The union started out so happily. After Mr. Biden defeated Mr. Trump four years ago, an elated Mr. Schumer said: “The long dark night in America is over and a new dawn is coming. Now, with Joe Biden as president, there is real hope in America.”
During the first two years of the Biden administration, congressional Democrats lauded the major legislative achievements they made, together passing the infrastructure bill, the CHIPS Act and the first gun safety legislation in decades, and lowering the cost of prescription drugs for Medicare beneficiaries. Back then, Mr. Biden, a veteran of the Senate who would often describe the chamber as his real home, took a hands-on approach to rallying Senate Democrats around his agenda, spending hours in the Oval Office with senators from both parties.
But he hasn’t visited Capitol Hill in years. Many Democratic senators have not connected with Mr. Biden for longer than that. And over the summer, as Mr. Biden tried to hang on to his teetering campaign, he participated in tense Zoom sessions with lawmakers that sometimes devolved into shouting matches when he was challenged about his ability to beat Mr. Trump.
“Name me a foreign leader who thinks I’m not the most effective leader in the world on foreign policy,” he said during one particularly contentious call with House Democrats.
The president tested the patience of his Democratic allies when he greeted them with a stern letter after they returned to Washington on July 8 from a holiday break and after the disastrous debate.
“The question of how to move forward has been well aired for over a week now,” Mr. Biden wrote. “And it’s time for it to end.”
In closed-door meetings, Senate Democrats, who harbored real concern not only about Mr. Biden’s ability to run but also their own prospects to hold their seats if he continued, said they were livid at being spoken to like that.
In a closed-door meeting in July with top White House and campaign aides, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island said the message the president needed to understand was that the silence from a majority of Democratic senators was not to be interpreted as any sign of tacit support.
“This was respect and affection while he came to the right decision,” Mr. Whitehouse said, “but it won’t last forever, because they would be lying.”
It didn’t help that Mr. Biden had not been present in years, leading at least one Democratic senator who spoke on the condition of anonymity to assume the worst: that he was being shepherded around, reading from teleprompters at fund-raisers, simply too old to handle the job. When Mr. Biden, under immense pressure, finally agreed to step aside, Democrats in Congress briefly experienced a deep sense of relief.
They praised him as a history-making statesman.
“A Mount Rushmore kind of president of the United States,” said former Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who at the time was no longer on speaking terms with Mr. Biden after suffering her own breakup of a friendship that spanned half a century.
But then Republicans won control of the trifecta of the White House, the Senate and the House, confirming the suspicion of many Democrats that Mr. Biden had made his move far too late. That appears to have sapped much of the remaining reserve of respect and affection for him on Capitol Hill.
Senator Richard Blumenthal, Democrat of Connecticut, who worked in the Senate for decades with Mr. Biden and was close with his son Beau, said there is still much regard for the president and his legislative accomplishments. But, he conceded, “it’s been a difficult couple of months. There was certainly a level of frustration toward the end of his decision not to run.”
As for the pardon, Mr. Blumenthal said: “He has made a decision that is understandable, but I am not going to say I approve of this decision. It will certainly be a talking point for Donald Trump.”
Senator Michael Bennet, Democrat of Colorado, accused Mr. Biden of “putting his personal interest ahead of his responsibility to the country.” Democrats “have lost a ton of political high ground as a result of his decision,” he added in an interview on Tuesday. “How do you go home and explain this?”
Mr. Biden’s post-election reversal on the pardon, Mr. Bennet said, played directly into Mr. Trump’s hands.
“One of the fundamental reasons why people elected Trump twice is even though they think he’s corrupt, they think he’s less corrupt than we are,” Mr. Bennet said. “They think he’s honest about his corruption.”
Senator Laphonza Butler, Democrat of California, who is set to give her farewell address on Thursday, rejected the breakup metaphor while conceding that Mr. Biden was coming under intense criticism from his former colleagues.
“There are plenty of Democrats in this body and outside of it who have great regard for the leadership and sacrifice that President Biden has made,” she said. “People can criticize without having bad blood or feeling like they married the wrong man. That should be how a part of democracy works.”
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