“Biden – Tamfis

Trump To Biden At White House: ‘Politics Is Tough…Not A Nice World’

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President Joe Biden meets with President-elect Donald Trump at the White House

U.S. President Joe Biden hosted President-elect Donald Trump at the White House on Wednesday as part of the tradition leading to the transfer of power from one administration to another.

It’s the first time Trump is visiting the White House since he lost his re-election bid to Biden four years ago.

It was also first time the pair have met since their presidential debate in late June after which Biden drop out of the presidential race.

The meeting between the incoming and outgoing presidents has always been held except in 2020 when Trump was to hand over to Biden, as he failed to invite Biden to the White House.

Receiving the President-elect, Biden said, “Former President Donald, Congratulations, looking forward to having a smooth transition, in the way we can, to make sure you get what you need and have chance to talk about other things. Welcome, welcome back,” as the pair shook hands.

“Thank you, Politics is tough, it is not a nice world but it is a very nice world today and I appreciate very much and look forward to a transition that is so smooth, as smooth as it can get,” Trump responded.

The meeting centered around transition, foreign and domestic policy as well as economic and security issues.

However, Trump’s wife, Melinia, did not attend the meeting but would receiveda letter from the first lady, Jill Biden, who handed it over to her husband, during his visit.

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In the twilight of his term, Biden greets global audience weary of war and wary of US politics

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CNN — Over the course of President Joe Biden’s term, he’s held dozens of calls and multiple face-to-face meetings with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, all with the goal of deepening a relationship based on democratic ideals and shared values.

In return, Scholz spent considerable political capital on Biden’s behalf: Releasing a Russian murderer from a German prison as part of a deal that would free three Americans from Russia, loosening longstanding defense policy to allow Ukraine to use German-made tanks to fight Russia and coming to Biden’s defense after a debate performance spelled the end of his political career.

“I think it would be a big mistake to underestimate the president,” Scholz told PBS ahead of NATO’s 50^thanniversary summit in Washington.

Now, with Biden out of a race that remains razor-thin and has allies on edge, Scholz will welcome the American president to Berlin, a visit to advance urgent foreign policy priorities as well as to offer a farewell tour of sorts for a president who prized alliances as the conduit for conflict resolution.

As part of the visit, Biden will meet with German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier and Scholz, as well as announce a new US-German exchange program and dialogue on “aligning” private investment with emerging technologies like artificial intelligence, according to a senior administration official.

Biden’s meeting with the chancellor will provide him an opportunity to thank the German leader for their close partnership over the years and discuss shared priorities on global issues, especially democratic institutions.

In addition to sitting down with German leadership, Biden will also meet with the leaders of the UK, France and Germany for a “European Quad” meeting to discuss “pressing” global challenges, from Ukraine’s victory plan to the ongoing crisis in the Middle East, the senior official said.

And while the meetings will take place a critical juncture, with American voters heading to the ballot box in less than three weeks and amid inflection points in Russia’s war in Ukraine and the Israel-Hamas conflict, the White House does not expect any concrete policy changes to result from Biden’s visit.

During a single day of official meetings, downgraded from the official state visit planned before Hurricane Milton hit the US, Biden will hold expanded discussions with Scholz and his team, as well as the summit including the leaders of France and the United Kingdom. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky had planned to attend before the meeting was delayed.

The agenda for the summit, officials say, will feature two key priorities for the leaders: The growing challenges facing Ukraine, where allies are at odds over how to address Zelensky’s “Victory Plan,” and intensifying requests for longer-range weapons, and the deteriorating situation in the Middle East as Israel plots forthcoming retaliation for Iran’s most recent ballistic missile barrage.

The “European Quad,” as Western officials have termed it, represents just one of the smaller coalitions Biden has leaned on to build consensus, as populist winds on both sides of the Atlantic have caused wariness over large, global institutions.

Biden has instead opted for “minilateralism,” what foreign policy experts have come to term his strategy for dealing with smaller coalitions of like-minded nations.

On the policy front, the Biden administration has wielded this approach to coalesce support for sanctions against Russia and, more recently, Iran; tariffs and export controls against China, which the United States recently replaced as Germany’s largest trading partner; and hundreds of billions of dollars in infrastructure investment in Africa and southeast Asia meant to create a buffer against Beijing’s soft power.

Critics say these efforts have strengthened alliances – but not thwarted adversaries. Fred Kempe, CEO of the Atlantic Council, says Biden didn’t take decisive enough action to keep a new axis of evil from forming in response to Western democracies.

“Ironically, it is precisely Biden’s caution that has encouraged continued Russian, Chinese, North Korean, and Iranian misbehavior,” Kempe writes. “The US and allied response to the increased cooperation among these countries continues to fall short of actions that would frustrate their common cause.”

For Biden, embarking on a farewell tour of sorts as he faces his final months in office, Germany stands as one country where the president enjoys broad popularity, thanks to his policies.

According to Pew Research Center polling on views of Biden across 34 countries, 63% of German respondents expressed confidence in Biden. In Poland – another country where aides have considered having Biden visit to tout Ukraine support – 70% of respondents express confidence in Biden.

And in Kenya and the Philippines, two countries where the administration has ramped up engagement and spearheaded infrastructure projects to counter China’s influence, that confidence level rises to 75% and 77%, respectively, Pew data show.

Elsewhere around the world, Biden’s seen his approval rating drop markedly, largely due to his handling of the Middle East volatility after October 7.

“It’s pretty clear the perception of how he’s dealing with that conflict is behind the noticeable decline between 2023 and 2024,” says Richard Wike, Pew’s director of Global Attitudes Research. “But overall, he still gets higher ratings than Trump.”

With less than three weeks before the US election, Trump will be the elephant in every room where Biden meets with leaders. Many expressed relief behind the scenes after Biden’s election in 2020. Biden frequently recounts the response from another head of state at his first G7 summit when he proclaimed that “America is back:”: “But for how long?”

And as CNN has reported, foreign diplomats expressed worry privately after Biden’s halting debate performance appeared to catapult Trump back to an election lead.

Now, as they consider the trajectory of the war in Ukraine that’s been simmering on Europe’s doorstep for years, allies must face the question of whether to back more aggressive tactics to bring about a swifter end to the war, as Zelensky has urged, unsuccessfully.

The deliberations come at a much more fraught time than when President Barack Obama found himself assuring allies in Germany and Greece during his final foreign trip that Trump, named president-elect one week earlier, would not abandon them. At a news conference with Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, Obama tried to identify some forces that led voters on both sides of the Atlantic to seek change – but issued a broader warning of what was to come.

“We are going to have to guard against a rise in a crude sort of nationalism of ethnic identity or tribalism that is built around an ‘us’ and a ‘them,’” Obama told reporters from Athens, which he noted was the birthplace of democracy. “The future of the world is going to be defined by what we have in common as opposed to those things that separate us and ultimately lead us into conflict.”

Biden Hosts a Final ‘Quad Summit’ at His Delaware Home

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President Biden and the Jewish mystical message

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(RNS) — You could say that it should have happened weeks ago, or even months ago.

There is no need to debate its timing. The obvious truth is: President Joe Biden has chosen to stop his presidential campaign and to step aside in favor of another candidate.

It was the right thing to do. In the wake of his challenged performance at the debate, it had become clear to many people that Biden was no longer up to the strenuous tasks of a campaign, and certainly the presidency. I am not a physician, but there seems to be some kind of cognitive decline — as there has been, by the way, with former President Donald Trump as well. I have written that this requires not snickering, but compassion.

What can we say about what happens when the most powerful person in the world decides to withdraw from power?

I am glad you asked.

Let’s have a class in Jewish mysticism.

In 1492, Ferdinand and Isabella exiled the Jews from Spain. They first went to Portugal, and thenceforth, went into the four directions of the globe — north, to Amsterdam; west, to the Americas; south, to North Africa; and east, to certain places in Italy, the Balkans and, ultimately, to the land of Israel — and most famously, to the city of Safed in the north of Israel.

In the 16th century, Safed consisted of a small community of mystical seekers who gathered around several spiritual teachers. Many of them gathered around a particularly charismatic teacher, Rabbi Isaac Luria.

Luria was known to be a miracle worker and a healer of souls, a man who conversed with angels and communed with the spirit of the Prophet Elijah.

But Luria’s greatest contribution was his theory about how the world came into existence.

Luria realized that there was a central problem in the Jewish idea of creation.

If the whole universe is filled with God’s presence, then there would be no room for the world to exist.

God withdrew into the Divine Self and contracted in order to make room for Creation — a mystical idea he called tzimtzum. That would become a new Jewish creation myth.

Consider how this plays out in the Bible itself.

When the Bible begins, and God is “young” (or, at least, younger), God is hyperactive — creating the world, redeeming Jews from Egypt, giving them laws.

But as the Bible continues, God is less and less active, has less to say, until it’s almost as if God has disappeared — or, perhaps, simply gone into eclipse.

So, is tzimtzum a “good” thing?

As the preeminent modern Orthodox thinker of our time, Rabbi Yitz Greenberg, writes: Yes, mostly.

In his new book, “The Triumph of Life: A Narrative Theology of Judaism,” Greenberg suggests that God’s withdrawal from history created rabbinic Judaism — and therefore, Judaism itself.

In the new Rabbinic era, tzimtzum paved the way for the Jewish people to receive Torah on those hitherto undetected wavelengths. Now wise people who learned Torah used their intelligence and judgment to reanalyze classic sources. They could utilize inherited techniques of literary analysis and traditional interpretation and find new levels of meaning. They could also apply the classic models to new situations.
God brought Israel and, by implication, humanity, into a covenantal partnership relationship that would enable them to grow into even greater responsibility for their lives and for the outcomes of history. From the beginning, the goal of covenant has been to nurture human beings to fully become the image of God: to create, take charge of their fate, and participate in their own liberation. Like a loving parent, God seeks to give needed direction, personal inspiration, and just enough help to enable the full development of a moral, responsible human being.

Rav Yitz goes on to say that modernity itself might be the result of tzimtzum:

In developing Newton’s physics and higher mathematics, in shifting to more empirical and scientific medicines, in fostering liberal and democratic politics, in investing in the Industrial Revolution, a diverse array of people gradually moved to take control of their fate and increase productivity. And within a short time Jews disproportionately joined the front rank of secular “prophets” of the new dispensation in many arenas.

But tzimtzum might be a mixed bag. The divine withdrawal leads to human freedom — radical human freedom to do both good and evil:

In sum, Jewish survival rates strongly suggest that Divine tzimtzum and full human responsibility are the prime forces operating in history. The Holocaust was the outcome of human power, gathered and dedicated to an evil purpose, and operating without moral restrictions. After the Holocaust, any assessment of humanity’s moral condition must be built on a foundation of despair and remorse. The sadness is only increased by the realization that God was incessantly calling, pleading, begging humanity to be their brothers’ and sisters’ keepers — largely in vain. The God of tzimtzum did not miraculously save the victims. Heartbreakingly, God’s designated agents for rescue (or those we might think of as such) were overwhelmingly missing in action.

But here’s the thing.

The idea of tzimtzum — contraction — does not end with God. It is about us, as well.

Decades ago, my late teacher Rabbi Eugene B. Borowitz suggested that just as God had to withdraw and “shrink” in order for the world to come into existence, leaders must make themselves “smaller” in order for their followers to grow. It is true of bosses, teachers, coaches and parents.

Rabbi Borowitz taught that the urge to compel is irresistible, especially between parents and children.

“Yet,” he writes, “if making this decision and taking responsibility for it will help the child grow — then the mature parent withdraws and makes it possible for the child to choose.”

That is how it was with President Joe Biden.

Yes, in terms of his health and abilities, it was “time.”

But it was also “time,” in terms of the needs of this time, and this generation, and the present political situation in this country. President Biden had to confront his own needs — his need for power and control — and he needed to weigh those needs against the political needs of the moment.

President Biden needed to “shrink” — not only so that someone else could take over, but so that this country could be what it needs to be.

In my imagination, President Biden not only confronted his own ego needs. He confronted something deeper and more ethereal. He needed to ask himself: “How do I want history to remember me — as an old man who could not step back, or as an old man who understood that it was time?”

He went for the second.

He did the right thing.

Let us hope that America does the right thing as well.