Biden and Har­ris unite for final White House Christ­mas tree light­ing amid back­lash

The pair will reunite for the annu­al tra­di­tion on the Ellipse after Har­ris retreat­ed from the pub­lic eye fol­low­ing her loss to Pres­i­dent-elect Don­ald Trump in Novem­ber and as Biden has avoid­ed any press con­fer­ence regard­ing his sur­prise blan­ket par­don of his son, Hunter Biden, on Sun­day before jet­ting off to vis­it the West African nation Ango­la.

Biden said the Jus­tice Depart­ment unfair­ly tar­get­ed his son in explain­ing the par­don.

“The charges in his cas­es came about only after sev­er­al of my polit­i­cal oppo­nents in Con­gress insti­gat­ed them to attack me and oppose my elec­tion,” Biden said in a state­ment.

BIDEN TO USE LAME-DUCK SESSION TO ‘TRUMP-PROOF’ LEGACY

First lady Jill Biden told reporters Mon­day, “Of course I sup­port the par­don of my son,” while unveil­ing Christ­mas dec­o­ra­tions in the East Room.

Hunter Biden was crim­i­nal­ly con­vict­ed in two fed­er­al felony cas­es involv­ing drug and gun charges, along with fail­ure to pay tax charges. He was await­ing sen­tenc­ing in both cas­es but will avoid prison time in the wake of the sweep­ing par­don.

The pres­i­dent faced grow­ing bipar­ti­san back­lash from law­mak­ers who accused him of improp­er­ly using his pow­ers after repeat­ed­ly say­ing he wouldn’t inter­vene in his son’s legal prob­lems.

Some law­mak­ers have sug­gest­ed that the pres­i­dent could par­don Trump as a ges­ture of uni­ty for the nation and to help ease the crit­i­cisms he has faced.

How­ev­er, senior White House aides are report­ed­ly weigh­ing pre­emp­tive par­dons to peo­ple Trump has sig­naled he would pros­e­cute when he returns to office, such as Sen.-elect Adam Schiff (D‑CA) and for­mer GOP Rep. Liz Cheney.

Con­gres­sion­al Democ­rats are urg­ing the pres­i­dent to grant clemen­cy to non­vi­o­lent offend­ers and inmates who are on death row.

“Dur­ing his final weeks in office, Pres­i­dent Biden should exer­cise the high lev­el of com­pas­sion he has con­sis­tent­ly demon­strat­ed through­out his life, includ­ing toward his son, and par­don on a case-by-case basis the work­ing-class Amer­i­cans in the fed­er­al prison sys­tem whose lives have been ruined by unjust­ly aggres­sive pros­e­cu­tions for non­vi­o­lent offens­es,” said House Minor­i­ty Leader Hakeem Jef­fries (D‑NY) in a state­ment Tues­day.

Fresh off last month’s elec­toral loss to Trump, Har­ris and sec­ond gen­tle­man Doug Emhoff will also appear at the Christ­mas light­ing as she con­tin­ues to map out a career path post-2024.

Harris’s aides have cast blame on the resound­ing loss and, at times, even on the president’s deci­sion to run for a sec­ond term and his even­tu­al exit in late July.

“A 107 days, two weeks f***ed up because of a hur­ri­cane, two weeks talk­ing about how she didn’t do inter­views. Which, you know, she was doing plen­ty, but we were doing it in our own way,” said Jen O’Malley Dil­lon, who chaired Harris’s cam­paign, dur­ing a Pod Save Amer­i­ca inter­view last week.

“We had to, you know, be the nom­i­nee, had to find a run­ning mate and do a roll­out. I mean, there was all these things that you kind of want to fac­tor in,” O’Malley Dil­lon added.

HOW KAMALA HARRIS PLOWED THROUGH $1 BILLION

In an inter­view with the Atlantic, David Plouffe, who served in a top advi­so­ry role on the Har­ris cam­paign, con­ced­ed that no Demo­c­rat would have pre­vailed against Trump.

“I’m not sure, giv­en the head­winds, any Demo­c­rat could have won,” he said, although he lament­ed the quick con­sol­i­da­tion behind Har­ris after Biden dropped out.

“But if we had a pri­ma­ry in which a bunch of peo­ple ran and audi­tioned … through that process, who­ev­er emerged … would have been a more ful­ly formed per­son, would have had more time to mount a gen­er­al elec­tion cam­paign. [Not hav­ing that process] is the car­di­nal sin,” Plouffe con­tin­ued.

After leav­ing the White House, Har­ris could run for California’s guber­na­to­r­i­al race in 2026 or even begin prepa­ra­tion for a 2028 pres­i­den­tial run, in which she would actu­al­ly under­go the pri­ma­ry process.

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Mick­ey Guy­ton will host the Christ­mas tree light­ing, and Adam Black­stone, Stephen Sanchez, James Tay­lor, Muni Long, Trom­bone Shorty, The War and Treaty, and Trisha Year­wood will per­form dur­ing the event.

The White House theme for this year’s hol­i­day sea­son is “Sea­son of Peace & Light.” Rough­ly 100,000 peo­ple are expect­ed to vis­it the East Colon­nade and attend near­ly two dozen hol­i­day par­ties.