HOW TO PRESIDENT

A near-miraculous legislative breakthrough has revived this administration— along with a question, stretching to the earliest days of their partnership, about whether Joe Biden or Barack Obama understands the powers of the White House best.

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BARACK OBAMA has kept a vanishingly small circle of trust in his post-presidency, and for much of this summer, any visitors who got a moment with him and dared to ask about Joe Biden's tanking administration tended to get no substantive answer.

Ever since leaving the White House in 2017, Obama has been cautious to the point of introversion about wading into daily politics, but through June and deep into July, he was noticeably cagey even with buddies-wary that a leak about any level of concern on his part would create a hellish news cycle. Content to watch from afar on Martha's Vineyard, where he and former First Lady Michelle have a 29-acre home and a personal chef, Obama followed the news closely as Biden's agenda stalled out, then was ground down by inflation and gas prices and an unconvincing response to the demise of Roe v. Wade.

From his perch on an island 500 miles north of the White House, Obama spoke with Biden sporadically. As always, their calls were private and no aides listened in. But as the summer wore on, Obama's small group of confidants gathered that Biden was impatient with his dismal approval numbers, which rivaled Donald Trump's. They thought Biden seemed sensitive about the fact that among Democratic candidates running for office in November, the 44th president will be a far more coveted surrogate than the 46th. (One private party poll in the battleground state of Arizona showed Biden's favorability at a putrid 26 percent.) And it seemed to them that the president was annoyed with some members of his own party, especially regarding what he saw as their fatalistic attitude about the midterms. (The White House disputes these impressions.)