Biden ‘never going to see Trump again’ after inauguration, says sister

Joe Biden is “never going to see Donald Trump again”, the president-elect’s younger sister, sometime campaign manager and close political adviser Valerie Biden Owens says in a new interview, when asked if there can be any forgiveness for the 45th president once he leaves the national stage.

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“I mean, it’s a moot point,” Biden Owens told Axios on HBO in excerpts released on Tuesday. “He’s never going to see Donald Trump again. Donald Trump is going off the stage and on 20 January that’s history, that’s past. Joe’s not gonna talk about Donald Trump. Who cares?”

Biden Owens also said her brother, who will be 78 when he takes office and who has described his intent to be a transitional president, would run for a second term. Asked about a run in 2024, Axios reported, Biden Owens said “sure” and “absolutely”.

“He’s transitional in that he’s bringing in all these young people and bringing [us] back again [so] we’re not a divided country … But sure. He’s going strong.

“He is the most experienced person to ever enter the White House in American history, because of his 36 years in the Senate and then his eight with President Obama. So he’s very clear-eyed.

“He really, really believes that where we are now in this country, we have such a tremendous opportunity to make things better for all Americans.”

Biden himself has indicated that he may run again. So has Trump.

Biden Owens said her brother would seek to engage “progressives or conservatives or Republicans or liberals or Democrats and independents”, and thereby “bring respect back to governing”.

“We all know him as a great talker,” she added. That echoed former British ambassador Sir Kim Darroch, who on Monday wrote for the Guardian about how the president-elect “likes to shoot the breeze”.

“My 2019 meeting with him,” Darroch said, “scheduled for 20 minutes, turned into a glorious hour and a half, ending only when his aides dragged him almost physically from the room to catch a plane.”

Biden Owens said her brother was “even a better listener”. Hopes are high, in some quarters, that Biden will able to leverage his longstanding relationship with the majority leader, Mitch McConnell, should the Republicans hold the Senate, and thereby achieve progress on coronavirus relief and other legislative priorities.

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Though Trump has not conceded the election and is pursuing legal challenges to results in battleground states, Biden is preparing his transition.

On Monday he named his own coronavirus taskforce and spoke about the pandemic. On Tuesday, as the supreme court hears a case which could bring down the Affordable Care Act, depriving millions of healthcare coverage, Biden is due to speak on the subject.

“He cares about the American people,” Biden Owens told Axios. “He cares about the people sitting at the kitchen table, who have an empty chair, because someone in their family died of Covid, because of the small business, one out of five, that has gone out of business. And the Latino, and the African American communities that have been hit with death, destruction and less opportunity.

“Donald Trump is not in my brother’s focus.”