Biden’s nat sec aides say president is up to the job

ASPEN, Colorado — Some of President Joe Biden’s top aides are trying to ease the national security establishment’s concerns about his ability to continue in one of the world’s toughest jobs.

National security adviser Jake Sullivan, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Joint Chiefs Chair C.Q. Brown presented a picture to those gathered at the Aspen Security Forum of an engaged commander-in-chief whose internationalist foreign policy vision benefits America and its allies.

“I am damn glad we have that guy sitting at the head of the table in the Situation Room,” Sullivan said in a press conference Friday at the close of the annual confab.

Sullivan, Blinken and Brown described the administration’s achievements in separate appearances at the forum. It was a tricky scene for all three. National security professionals generally try to avoid domestic politics, with the idea being that their work is too important to fall victim to partisanship. But the politics are hard to avoid this year, not only because of growing Democratic pressure on Biden to quit the 2024 race because of age-related stumbles, but also due to the assassination attempt on Trump.

Questions about Biden’s abilities are particularly crucial to national security issues, while many on the president’s team view Trump’s plans, which are skeptical of NATO and lean toward isolationism, as a long-term strategic mistake.

When asked by a reporter whether the 81-year-old Biden — whose poor performance in a debate against Trump sparked the recent intra-party tumult — is capable of performing his role for four more years, Sullivan vigorously defended him.

“I believe that the president of the United States is doing a very good job as president and will continue doing a very good job, and that’s why he’s standing for office,” Sullivan said.

Sullivan shared an anecdote describing an alert and deeply engaged Biden on April 13, when Iran launched a massive missile and drone attack against Israel. The U.S. helped defend Israel.

That was the type of incident where “you get to see in living color, in real time, the capacity of a commander-in-chief,” Sullivan said.

On separate panels, Sullivan and his colleagues also offered more subtle responses to questions about Biden.

“All the times I’ve engaged with the president, he’s been engaged,” said Brown, whose role means he’ll advise Trump should he return to the White House and who, as a uniformed officer, generally avoids political commentary.

During the Republican National Convention, which overlapped with the Aspen event this week, Trump laid out a vision of a more retrenched U.S. should he win.

“We’re going to build an Iron Dome over our country, and we’re going to be sure that nothing can come and harm our people, ”he said during his nomination speech. “No more sending it out to other countries in order to help. It’s America First, America First.”

Brown said that if the United States pulls back from the world, “that opens a door for [Chinese leader] Xi Jinping and others that want to do unprovoked aggression. We have credibility that’s at stake associated. It’s not just the United States, but NATO, the West, if we just back away.”

In what may have been a subtle dig at Trump, Blinken warned against the security challenges posed by the spread of populism.

He said demographic shifts globally — declining population growth and aging societies — could provide future challenges as young people feel older generations are taking too many resources. “This is where populism becomes incredibly appealing. This is something that we have to be very cognizant about around the world,” Blinken said.

Trump’s backers are often described as populist, though their grievances are often cultural and economic, not necessarily about age differences.

When asked about how America’s adversaries viewed the tumult in U.S. politics, Sullivan noted that foreign nations always view elections as moments of potential vulnerability, and some try to influence the outcome.

“We’re clear-eyed about that,” he said. “And we are doing a lot to push back against it, to ensure the sanctity of our elections, to ensure the safety of our voting system.”

Plenty of U.S. national security officials — whether career government servants or political appointees — are wary of how this year’s elections will go. They know that a Trump presidency could mean major shifts in U.S. foreign policy and that Trump is suspicious enough of the U.S. national security apparatus that he may try to fire many of the people in it.

That’s one reason that morale in places such as the State Department and the National Security Council is falling, according to people familiar with the issue interviewed in Aspen and in Washington.

But most added that the work continues, a theme Sullivan and his colleagues effectively echoed on Friday.

Sullivan said he couldn’t speak for everyone on the NSC or beyond, but that he was proud of their accomplishments.

“Politics are politics,” he said. “It’s not what we work on.”