Reporter Tells Biden ‘How Wrong I Was’ In 2020 — ‘Did Not Expect’ Biden To End Up Beating Trump

ProPublica reporter and veteran White House correspondent John Harwood kicked off his interview with President Joe Biden by confessing he was surprised by the results of the 2020 campaign, in which Biden defeated then-President Donald Trump after an overwhelming victory in the Democratic primary.

Harwood sat down with the president for a lengthy interview for ProPublica that was published Sunday, and which covered a variety of topics.

But Harwood began the interview with something of a confession: that when he interviewed then-candidate Biden for CNBC in 2019, Harwood did not think Biden would do well in that campaign.

The president chalked Harwood’s errant misgivings to factors like changes in the polling and media landscape:

JOHN HARWOOD: Mr. President, thanks for doing this.

PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: Happy to do it.

JOHN HARWOOD: I can’t start without acknowledging how wrong I was the last time we sat down nearly four years ago. I did not expect the 2020 campaign to go well. And here we are.

PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: Well, you know, I’m optimistic and I thought we could do that well. And I remember 2022, I thought we were going to do well, too.

I think the means in which people are tracking polls now, they’ve kind of lost their focus and it’s hard to get it done. Secondly, I think that I think, you know, the media’s changed a lot.

When Biden spoke with Harwood on December 6, 2019, he held a 12-point lead in the Democratic primary over Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and a four-point lead over then-President Trump in the RCP general election polling average. But Sanders would go on to open a double-digit lead on Biden that narrowed and then disappeared after Super Tuesday.

Biden’s win in the South Carolina primary is widely seen as the turning point in that campaign, after which several other candidates dropped out.

Watch above via ProPublica.