This is The New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker.

This is The New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick.

And I'm here with my colleague, staff writer Evan Osnios, who's been reporting for many years on Joe Biden.

We've got a big piece coming out in The New Yorker this week, a profile of Biden. How are you doing, Evan? I'm doing okay. Thanks, David.

Now, Evan, I've got a little trip down memory lane for you here from almost four years ago.

You went to see Biden during the 2020 campaign. It was the height of the pandemic and you were at his home in

Delaware, masked and socially distant. And he spoke about his motivation to run against Donald

Trump. Here's a bit from that interview. Where Trump not running, I probably wouldn't be running.

But he's so contrary to everything that I believe about government and that's sort of the

antithesis of what I think we should be doing we have always talked about we've thought about

we've never lived up to we the people hold these truths to be self-evident

every kid learns it i think most of us thought even those with a lot of experience thought

that that's always going to be that way to me we're never we've never met it but we're

constantly move closer and closer and closer to more inclusion.

And all of a sudden, you're thinking yourself, holy God, look at these guys, look what's happening.

Look what's being done. Look what's being said, not just by him, but by his followers and some of his, some of his elected colleagues.

Evan, that is approximately four years ago, and I wonder how you remember that interview,

and what is the contrast between the Biden of four years ago, who was running for president,

who would eventually unseat Donald Trump, and Joe Biden,

the incumbent whom you saw in the Oval Office just a few weeks ago. Yeah, David, I have to say,

hearing that kind of brings you back to that. When I went to see him this time, here he was at the resolute desk in the Oval

office. It was a slightly kind of overly formal occasion. The first thing he wanted to do was say,

...