Earlier this fall, one of Joe Biden’s closest aides felt compelled to tell the president a harsh truth about Kamala Harris’s presidential run: “You have more to lose than he does.” And now he’s lost it. Joe Biden cannot escape the fact that his four years in office have paved the way for the return of Donald Trump. This is his legacy. Everything else is an asterisk.

In the hours after Harris’ defeat, I called and texted members of Biden’s inner circle to hear their post-mortems on the campaign. They looked as dull as the rest of the Democratic elite. They also had a concern of their own: Members of Biden’s clan continue to nurture the illusion that their family member will win the election, and some of his advisers feared he might publicly voice this deeply misguided view.

While Biden advisers I spoke with were reluctant to say anything negative about Harris’ candidacy, they offered level-headed criticism of her campaign, based on the months they spent strategizing in anticipation of the election. Hidden in their autopsies were the unspoken belief that they could have done better.

One criticism suggests that Harris lost because she abandoned her strongest attack. Harris began the campaign by portraying Trump as a stooge of corporate interests and cast himself as a relentless scourge of Big Business. During the Democratic National Convention, speaker after speaker offered scathing critiques of Trump’s oligarchic allegiances. “We must help him win, because we know Donald Trump would sell this country for a dollar if it meant lining his own pockets and greasing the palms of his Wall Street friends,” said New York Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

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While Harris is stuck defending the Biden economy and hobbled by ongoing anger over inflation, attacking Big Business has allowed her to go on the offensive. Then suddenly this brand of populism disappeared. One Biden aide told me that Harris moved away from such harsh messaging at the urging of her brother-in-law, Tony West, Uber’s chief legal officer. (West did not immediately respond to a request for comment.) To win the CEOs’ support, Harris jettisoned a strong argument that distracted from one of her weakest issues. Instead, the campaign singled out Mark Cuban as one of its top surrogates, exactly the type of rich man he had recently attacked.

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Another Bidenland critique accuses Harris of failing to navigate the backlash against identity politics. It’s not like Harris is running a “woke” campaign. On the contrary, he was bathed in patriotism. He introduced himself as a prosecutor, a friend of law enforcement and a proud gun owner. But she did not respond to the Trump campaign’s ubiquitous ads claiming that Harris supports gender reassignment operations on prisoners. It allowed Trump to create the impression that he supports the most radical version of trans rights.

Allies say Biden would never allow such attacks. She would publicly reject the idea of ​​trans women competing in women’s sports. Of course, he never ventured into this position during his presidency. But it’s true that, despite the millions of dollars poured into attack ads, Harris is avoiding the issue rather than debunking it. And ultimately, these ads likely instilled the idea that Harris is not the cultural centrist she appears to be.

A bitter irony troubles Biden’s aides. In the coming months, Trump will use his executive authority and unified control of Washington to unravel many of the administration’s proudest achievements. But he will claim the things he hasn’t destroyed as his own. Biden helped lay the foundations for economic growth with the Inflation Reduction Act, CHIPS Act, and infrastructure bill. Biden never had a chance to reap the rewards, as the investments made possible by all three bills would take years to bear fruit. Although Trump opposes these laws, the benefits of these bills could strengthen his presidency. Biden will pass on his most important legacy as a gift to his successor.