EXCLUSIVE: Joe Biden talks Hunter pardon, Trump in exit interview | USA TODAY

Susan, broadly speaking, how did the president seem to you? Was he in good spirits, feeling optimistic and hopeful about his legacy? What was his demeanor like? It was funny, Karen. I was walking down the West Wing Hallway toward the Oval Office to the office where his secretary sits. And he's standing there in the hallway waiting to greet me. And he offers me a cookie. He has a silver tray of cookies from the White House mess that are enclosed in cellophane and have a little gold presidential seal to hold the cellophane closed. He was, I think, in a good mood. This was an interview he wanted to have. I think he wants to make his case that his presidency has been one of of consequence, even if he doesn't have the second term he wanted. Now, you've interviewed 10 presidents. How did his demeanor compare to that of other presidents that you've spoken to as they prepared to leave office? I had what I think was the last print interview with George W. Bush when he left office. And there was a president who was ready to go. He had served two terms. We were in the middle of a financial crisis. He wanted to get out of there. That was clear from his demeanor. That's not the case with Joe Biden. He wants to stay. He wishes he had more time. He wishes he could have run for office again, won a second term. That's not the way things turned out. So this is this is a guy who has been in politics for 55 years since he got elected to the county council in Newcastle, Delaware, and not quite done. I think there is speculation that the president may pardon some of the people like Liz Cheney that president elect Trump considers his enemies. Did he reveal anything to you about that? He did. I asked him if he had decided whether he's going to do these preemptive pardons. He said he hasn't decided yet, but he told me that he talked to Donald Trump about this when they met. The president elect and the current president met for almost two hours in the Oval Office a week after the election. And we don't know much about what was said, but President Biden told me that he urged Trump to rethink the idea of going after some of these people who have angered him, some of these people he sees as his enemies. He told him that it wouldn't help him to do this. He said that Trump didn't answer, really didn't didn't say whether he would take his advice, but he said he did seem to listen. One of the most significant aspects of Biden's legacy is his decision to drop out of the presidential race for a second term. Did he share with you his feelings about that? I think it's still a little bit of a sore point for him. And he told me that he believes that if he had stayed in the race, he could have defeated Donald Trump in November. That's not the conventional wisdom about how he would have fared against Trump if he had stayed in the race. But he told me he believes he would have won. But then he said, I asked him, well, if you had won, would you have the vigor to serve four more years in what a lot of people consider the hardest job in the world? And he said, I don't know. He said he didn't know if he had four more years in him. And so that was, I thought, quite an extraordinary admission. Susan, I have to ask, you've known President Biden since early in his political career. How did he seem? Was he struggling mentally at all? Did he seem sharp and on the ball? I've covered all four of Biden's presidential bids. And some of the things that have raised concerns about his aging are actually things that were true his first time out in 1987. You know, he is a man who is given to verbal gaffes. I thought he seemed sharp and engaged and loquacious in this interview. That doesn't mean there are no signs of aging. He looks older. And one thing is that he does now is he sometimes talks so softly. It can be actually hard to hear him. And that was has not been the case when he was younger. At 82, President Biden is a politician whose career in a lot of ways was shaped by personal tragedy. Did he share anything about that with you? We know, of course, that when he was first elected to the U.S. Senate, that his wife and his baby daughter were killed in a car crash. The great tragedy of his life and one that made him reconsider whether he wanted to be in politics at all. And then at what seemed to be the end of his political life in 2015, his elder son, Beau, died of a brain tumor. So he was his political life was kind of bookended by these two tragedies about which he's talked a lot and which clearly have left their mark on him. It came through in the interview when I asked him about his other son, Hunter. Now, Hunter has had some troubles. He's struggled with addiction. He's been the subject of investigation. He was convicted of both gun and tax charges recently. And when I asked him about his decision to pardon Hunter, he responded not like a president. He responded like a father. He talked not about the political cost he's paid with Hunter's investigations and with his decision recently to pardon him. He talked about his pride in Hunter for battling his addiction. That really struck me. It was the moment in the interview that he was most animated and most happy talking about how his son, who he said was a very smart guy, had been doing so well. And he said, thank God he's doing well. And that's particularly striking because Biden is right now facing tremendous backlash over his decision to pardon his son, Hunter, over his tax evasion convictions and convictions to do with the gun charges for which he hasn't even been sentenced yet. Did he share with you his concerns about that? Biden had promised he wasn't going to pardon his son. But after the election, he did. The other controversy is the nature of the pardon, quite sweeping. Pardons Hunter for any federal crime he might have committed for a period of 10 years. And there are legal scholars who worry this sets a template for a future president to use and abuse. And I asked Biden if he had concerns that this pardon was so sweeping it could be a precedent for future presidents to abuse. And he said, I hope not. As we talk about his legacy, did he have any concerns that this would mark his legacy? I would say not. I think his instinct to protect his son was so strong that he was not concerned about whether it affects his legacy and that and how it's affected his presidency. Looking back, what does Biden most hope to be remembered for? He wants to be remembered like FDR. And he's got FDR's portrait hanging over the mantle of the fireplace in the Oval Office. FDR was a president who got through a crisis and got Americans back to work. Well, Biden is a president, in his view, got Americans through the pandemic crisis and has gotten Americans back to work. Any final impressions you want to share with our audience about your interview, Susan? You know, Biden has not done very many interviews, fewer than any president since at least Ronald Reagan. And I think one reason he wanted to do this interview is because he thinks his presidency has done a lot for Americans and for average people, for everyday workers, for people like those who live in his hometown of Scranton. And he wanted to make his case.