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Biden puts AI and climate at the top of the list for Trump administration

President Biden salutes after delivering a speech about his foreign policy achievements at the State Department on Jan. 13, 2025.
Chip Somodevilla
/
Getty Images
President Biden salutes after delivering a speech about his foreign policy achievements at the State Department on Jan. 13, 2025.

After President Biden rhymed off a long list of foreign policy accomplishments in a valedictory address on Monday, he called on his successor to carry forward his work in two specific — and somewhat surprising — areas: artificial intelligence and climate.

The two items were not on the radar when Biden, 82, entered public life — and they were overshadowed during his four years at the White House by the conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza, pushback against China, and the rough exit of U.S. troops from Afghanistan.

But Biden singled out those two issues as having the potential to shape the future, and urged President-elect Donald Trump to carry them forward.

"On artificial intelligence, we are the lead. We must stay in the lead. We must not offshore artificial intelligence, as he once did with computer chips and other critical technologies," Biden said.

"AI has the power to reshape economies, governments, national security, entire societies," he said.

The only overt criticism he leveled at the incoming Trump administration came when he talked about skepticism among some members of the incoming team about clean energy.

"They don't even believe climate change is real. I think they come from a different century. They're wrong. They are dead wrong. It's the single greatest existential threat to humanity," Biden said.

He said China was working to dominate the market, and said the United States must not allow that to happen.

Copyright 2025 NPR

Asma Khalid
Asma Khalid is a White House correspondent for NPR. She also co-hosts The NPR Politics Podcast. Khalid is a bit of a campaign-trail addict, having reported on the 2014, 2016, 2018 and 2020 elections. She joined NPR's Washington team in 2016 to focus on the intersection of demographics and politics. During the 2020 presidential campaign, she covered the crowded Democratic primary field, and then went on to report on Joe Biden's candidacy. Her reporting often dives into the political, cultural and racial divides in the country. Before joining NPR's political team, Khalid was a reporter for Boston's NPR station WBUR, where she was nearly immediately flung into one of the most challenging stories of her career — the Boston Marathon bombings. She had joined the network just a few weeks prior, but went on to report on the bombings, the victims, and the reverberations throughout the city. She also covered Boston's failed Olympic bid and the trial of James "Whitey" Bulger. Later, she led a new business and technology team at the station that reported on the future of work. In addition to countless counties across America, Khalid's reporting has taken her to Pakistan, the United Kingdom and China. She got her start in journalism in her home state of Indiana, but she fell in love with radio through an internship at the BBC Newshour in London during graduate school. She's been a guest on numerous TV programs including ABC's This Week, CNN's Inside Politics and PBS's Washington Week. Her reporting has been recognized with the Missouri Honor Medal for Distinguished Service in Journalism, as well as awards from the Society of Professional Journalists and the Gracie Award. A native of Crown Point, Ind., Khalid is a graduate of Indiana University in Bloomington. She has also studied at the University of Cambridge, the London School of Economics, the American University in Beirut and Middlebury College's Arabic school. [Copyright 2024 NPR]