Former President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris returned to the public spotlight recently after taking a reprieve after leaving office as the Democratic Party is still trying to find a path forward.

Their reemergence comes as Democrats are facing a flood of moves from President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans to remake the federal government and global trading system that has left them struggling to keep up with the volume of changes they see as threats to the country.

Biden and Harris have stepped back into the public eye in recent weeks for interviews and speeches where they railed against the Trump administration and congressional Republicans’ legislative agenda.

Biden had his first TV interview in the U.S. since departing the White House this week on ABC’s “The View,” where he defended his mental acuity, claimed he would have beaten Trump had he stayed in the race and ripped into Trump’s first 100 days in office as the worst in U.S. history.

Harris also recently made her first public speech since leaving office, where criticized the Trump administration and pushed for Democratic voters to stay in the fight. She has committed to staying involved against Trump and Republicans currently in congressional majorities, but is facing questions about what her role in the party looks like.

“One thing we’re seeing is that when they grab the microphone, they’re going to get attention. It’s going to be news,” said Chris Devine, an associate professor of political science at the University of Dayton in Ohio. “Knowing they can command that attention, there’s some incentive to try to get out there and shape the narrative in Biden’s case about his legacy, Kamala Harris’s case about her future.”

Harris is reportedly mulling a run for governor of California next year, which would give her a high-profile position to take on Trump from, and whether to run again in the 2028 presidential primary. She would likely be an immediate frontrunner for either post, but it’s unclear what her plans are.

Biden said he still speaks to Harris frequently and that she has a difficult decision ahead of her for her future.

“She’s got a difficult decision to make about what she’s going to do,” Biden said on “The View.” “I hope she stays fully engaged. I think she’s first rate, but we have a lot of really good candidates as well.”

A wide range of potential Democratic presidential candidates have been trying to find a new vision for the party to remake its image with the public, which has declined from Biden’s final months in office and into the second Trump administration. Few of them have been interested in revisiting the 2024 election or championing the Biden administration’s policies.

Many congressional candidates avoided campaigning with Biden ahead of the 2024 election as he faced sagging approval ratings and did not make many appearances with Harris on the campaign trail, both signs of his standing within the party and its voters.

It’s unclear what role he will have in shaping the party’s future or whether Democratic candidates will bring him on the campaign trail. Harris’s position in the party also remains an open question going forward that is likely dependent on whether she opts to run for office.

“It’s a complicated thing, but I will say she had great enthusiasm on the campaign trail. It didn’t translate into votes the way that her campaign and a lot of observers expected, but she certainly showed that she can excite crowds,” Devine said. “There might be some Democratic figures who look back on that and say, ‘I think she could help energize this campaign and what people don’t like about her is more about Joe Biden than it is about her.’”

Early potential contenders for the presidential nomination have taken differing approaches to rebutting the Trump administration as the party tries to coalesce around a message and plan for the midterms and onward. Some have been forceful opposition figures to Trump, while others have sought to take a more balanced approach, both of which have yielded mixed results.

The party is also in the process of ushering in a generational change in its leadership with Biden leaving office, Hakeem Jeffries taking over as the top House Democrat during the last Congress and a wave of retirements of longtime lawmakers, including some in leadership positions like Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois.

Where the party’s platform will end up is also subject to internal debate, with a divide between progressive and centrist figures about exactly what went wrong for Harris in 2024. Some progressives have charged she did not provide enough new ideas to excite voters while moderates have pushed for a more centrist approach focused on kitchen table issues and the strength of the economy.

Have a news tip? Contact Austin Denean at atdenean@sbgtv.com or at x.com/austindenean.