President Joe Biden is currently isolating in Delaware with Covid, all while he watches his party try to knife his incumbent campaign in the back. According to NBC News’ sources, President Biden “feels personally hurt and betrayed by the way so many Democrats, including some of the party’s top leaders, have left him hung out to dry as he faces the biggest crisis of his political career.” I feel hurt and betrayed on his behalf, and I cannot believe what Biden’s supposed political allies are doing to him and have already done to him in the past month. It’s grotesque and it’s one of the most shameful moments in the history of the Democratic Party. In case you didn’t know, this whole f–king catastrophe started because the media needed ratings and drama, and because Democratic donors got spooked. All of this Dem Party panic and “senior Democrats” briefing against Biden constantly is about the donors throwing their weight around. CNBC reports that Hillary and Bill Clinton have been working behind the scenes to soothe donors:
Since then, big money donors who fund either the Biden campaign, his allied political action committees or the party at large have launched a lobbying campaign aimed at senior Democrats in both the House and Senate. Their goal is to convince lawmakers to publicly call on Biden to end his reelection campaign, according to over half a dozen people familiar with the matter.
Many of these donors laid their positions out in stark terms: If Biden refused to drop out, they would not be giving money to help his reelection until polls showed that he was a clear favorite to beat Trump.
Donors who have made these types of calls to Democrats on Capitol Hill include Hollywood executive Ari Emanuel, his brother Zeke Emanuel and Alan Jones, a senior managing director at Intermediate Capital Group and a longtime Democratic party donor, two people familiar with the matter explained.
The effort set off a scramble by some of Biden’s allies to keep donors on the president’s team. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, her husband former President Bill Clinton and Biden campaign co-chair and media mogul Jeff Katzenberg have all made pleas to donors, asking them to stick with Biden, according to people briefed on the matter.
Biden has repeatedly said he has no plans to drop out of the race, despite over 20 members of Congress publicly calling on him to “pass the torch,” with many more doing so in private.
In an unexpected twist, events that feature Vice President Kamala Harris, Biden’s likely successor should he step aside, have started to sell out. An online seating chart for a concert event with Harris in Pittsfield, Mass. on July 27 shows it is almost entirely sold out. Tickets start at $100 and go up to just over $12,000, according to the invitation. Folk legend James Taylor and cello star Yo-Yo Ma are the headliners.
As I said in a separate post, this is the moment – it actually should have happened before now – for the party elders, the ones with no more campaigns left to run, to step forward with their full-throated support of President Biden and Vice President Harris. I’m glad the Clintons are working behind the scenes to help President Biden and I’m disgusted that the Obamas are not. Part of me wonders if the original plan was to have a big come-to-Jesus moment at the Democratic National Convention, with those party elders all coming out for Biden and making it a big moment of party unity. If that was the plan (and I have no idea if it was), they need to update the schedule and make it happen ASAP. I’m not sure if we can wait until August 19th, when the DNC starts in Chicago. What if this bullsh-t is still raging through the Olympic fortnight?
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.
Thank God for Hillary Clinton. She’s one of my superheroes.
AOC has become one of my new superheroes.
@K.W. Absolutely on everything you said!
Yes, I watched as the news increasingly referenced polls (which are historically wrong) against Biden as their viewership and podcast numbers skyrocketed.
I could understand if our country was, God forbid, falling apart, but it’s not! It’s all for eyeballs and money when really NOBODY IRL was saying that! Evil. I stopped watching. Yeah, that current viewership cliff drop is me!
But the Democrats are not giving good communications strategy. Right Wing bruised, cancelled males created hundreds of podcasts en masse and say they are for “the family”. Democrats response? Silence.
In fact, Male Democrats JOINED in the Right Wing Male Podcast cartel’s anti-Biden reporting. I guess men do stick together.
It’s copycat loops of news cycle reporting and way too many players in a devolving “Say Anything” media and podcast industry. I watch something and have to switch it off thinking,
“Wrong again, I don’t agree, neither do my friends, neighbors or family, you are desperate for eyeballs, America’s doing better than any country in the world. WHAT are you Brutus-like liberal media all doing with these 24/7 reports helping Right Wing Extremists we hard stop voted OUT!”
AOC is putting it out there in the strongest terms possible what these idiots are doing to the party and our country. I’m glad she is on Biden’s side.
Same.
If anyone is in NY or will be before Sept 15th I thoroughly recommend seeing the play N/A at the Lincoln Center. It is about Pelosi and AOC and conversations they had (real and imagined) between 2018 and 2020. It’s just brilliant and I have a better understanding and respect for AOC now.
Thanks for the rec. I just bought my ticket!
After all the BS shenanigans (and we now know it’s being orchestrated by former Republican Steve Schmidt), I am changing my party affiliation to Independent. I’m disgusted.
@Nicole – 😯 after seeing your comment “it’s being orchestrated by former Republican Steve Schmidt” I feel like the scales are falling from my eyes. This bizarro campaign has had a very weird, almost scorched earth, quality about it. Like as if formerly very connected political operative(s) found themselves disgruntled, and out of power, with a new candidate. So they decided to strike out on their own and create a new political Blinkon Project. But it wasn’t enough, so they decided to ingratiate and insinuate themselves into the political organization they formerly opposed…
Ditto.
Would love to be in NY to see the play, but after spending $$thousands on my first ever NYC trip last year, I’m holding the line. Sounds great though.
AOC is a national treasure.
Agree with you. Dumping an incumbent presiding over a good economy would be Peak Democrat. Thank you Hillary for helping President Biden. And, I’m halfway through AOC’s IG live. She said dumping Biden would mean republican legal challenges over a new name on the ballot and would mean CORRUPT US SUPREME COURT decides the election.
100%
I like AOC for her progressive values, but her real brilliance is in her understanding of power structures.
🎯
I have ALWAYS admired AOC and Hillary. I’m “riding with Biden and Kamala”. To hell with these white male back-stabbers and bed-wetters. I am a white woman but I wear my Kamala shirt as often as possible and get a lot of compliments and thank yous from white and black women.
Part of what is driving this is the time frame between the votes for incumbant and their convention. But its also being spurred on by the poison pill legislation the incumbant R’s in Ohio are trying to slip in. They are insisting on nominations being closed before the DNC convention which would in effect mean no dem on Ohio’s ballot. Daily Beans podcast for 18 July has a good summation of the situation.
Can we please listen to Hillary this time? She has been right about so many damn things in the past.
She’s been playing this game forever so I hope she pushes the right buttons and stops this insane take-down attempt, although she couldn’t do it for herself in 2016.
Yes. For the love of god democrats, LISTEN TO HILLARY.
Hillary believed she had the win in the bag and neglected to properly campaign in the swing states that’s part of the reason why she lost.
Also Russian interference and Bernie Bros.
I don’t disagree generally that she should have campaigned more in Michigan and Wisconsin and PA, but the margin by which she lost those states was so narrow that I think third party voters and Russia and Comey can be blamed just as much.
Also, Trump literally committed 34 felonies to win the electoral college.
She was scheduled to come to WI but the Pulse nightclub shooting in FL killing 49 people happened and she came to FL. WI had new strict voter id requirements that targeted students and POC along with Russian interference. WI was also one of the states that the voter information had been hacked.
Hillary should have listened to Donna Brazile and other “boots on the ground” Democrats in 2016. She should even have listened to Bill. but that’s water under the bridge. Glad she is supporting Biden.
I was actually worried about the JD Vance pick, until I remembered my despair over the Sarah Palin pick. That turned out to be a disaster and so will the JD Vance one. He is an utter sleaze,totally anti-woman pick that will backfire in the suburbs.
Professor Allan Lichtman called the Clinton-tRump race for tRump on September 23, 2016, before significant campaigning had happened. Also before the Comey letter of October 28 announcing the reopening of Hillary’s email case.
Lichtman based his 2016 prediction using “13 Keys to the White House” derived from analyzing elections from 1860 to 1980, while working with Russian geophysicist Vladimir Kellis-Borok adapting earthquake prediction methods. In 2016, Lichtman said tRump was such an unprecedented candidate he still might screw it up even though favored by the ’13 Keys’ system. But he called it correctly for tRump on Sep 23, and again on Oct 28.
She has won the popular vote. Unfortunately not the electoral vote.
She was wrong about how to win an election against Donald Trump and that’s why we’re here today.
People didn’t 100% fully understand who Trump was then, Hillary was tainted by Bill’s bad behavior, and the Bernie Bros took a lot of Democratic votes. People now know just what an orange rapist felonious traitor Trump is. If we bail on Biden now the Democrats are fccked. If a Trump/Vance ticket wins, Vance and the Thiel-picked cabinet will pull a 25th amendment to get rid of Trump, and JD will make Don look like Little Mary Sunshine. Vance is 100% Kremlin stooge, and America will turn into a complete kleptocratic oligarchy under his watch. We’ll all be longing for the days of Trump’s lethally incompetent first term.
I am infuriated, livid, enraged, and beyond upset on Biden’s behalf. Have these idiots not learned from what they did to us in 2000 and again, even worse, in 2016? The enemy is not only at the door, the enemy is within, the enemy is us. The question should NEVER be “but can he/she/they win?” It should be is THIS the person who will do the most to forward what I believe is the best for this country, what I want for this country? Biden IS that for me. He has my vote. If that choice is taken from me and I am forced to vote for Gavin Newsome or Josh Shapiro or Andy Beshears in November, and notice how these are all white men being bandied about by these backstabbers, I will do so with anger but I don’t think any one of them is “electable” and I will slay that to the George Clooneys and James Carvilles and Michael Moores. Last night, I sent a letter to Jon Tester’s campaign that, although I have financially supported him in the past, he will not see another cent of my money. John Roberts is our chief justice because of these idiots. Sam Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh, Amy Covid Barrett are all Supreme Court Justices because of these idiots and the harm they are doing to us is beyond measure. I hope Clooney realizes that if he keeps up with this nonsense, his daughter will not be able to live in the US once she hits puberty.
For your last sentence – he doesn’t care. He has a villa in Italy and I’m sure he’ll buy a place in England if he doesn’t already have one. That’s what’s so infuriating about this. A lot of the people begging for Biden to step down wont be affected by a Trump administration.
Bill and Hillary?…I’ll say no more.
If it helps Biden and Harris, I’m all for it.
Just love that picture of the two of them laughing. You know he probably told an inappropriate joke.
I will always be angry about what this country lost by Hillary not becoming president.
The rich white (predominantly male) donors are showing their asses here. They’re not only willing to seriously jeopardize the election with their very public demands, they’re now signaling that if they don’t get their way that they’ll basically help Trump have a GQP controlled congress to ensure the US ends up in a Trumpian hellscape dictatorship. It doesn’t matter to them because they’re not the people who will actually be hurt grievously by living under Christofascist conditions enforced by self-proclaimed “alpha male” ammosexuals armed with AR-15s.
And the worse part is….they don’t have a plan on who supposed to be running for president instead of Biden. Never they also nothing in place for the replacing candidate.
The donors and Democrats are just chickens without a head cackling nonsense. Do you think that instills confidence, unity to the voter? No, they’re freaking so inept that they’re basically handing the election to Trump on a golden platter.
Get yourself together and stop this crap and be ready for the Election that’s going to be here a few months from now.
I volunteer for the Democrats, as I am one, and knock doors aka “canvass” for Biden and other Dems. I also live in Pennsylvania in a more liberal part. Independents think Biden is not mentally capable of governing and there is nothing Biden or anyone else can do to change their minds. Dems need independents in the swing states to win the electoral college. Biden knows this. A lot of independents likely won’t vote so that means Dem Senate and House candidates will likely lose, not all, but enough. So we will have Trump, and Republican controlled Senate and House. That will all be thanks to Biden cause he should have never run in the first place as he said he would not on 2020. Biden is not entitled to be president. If he had disclosed his health issues earlier, the primaries would have been different.
He has been a politician all his life and is likely afraid of who he will be, or not be, if he retires. Plus he is afraid of aging, which is a scary thing. I know. But his fears are not a reason to placate him and thereby allow Trump to become president.
This. I am a democrat and am mad at Biden and the DNC. So so mad. He’s just another white man clinging to power and his administration has been gaslighting us about his mental capacity for the last couple of years. No interviews, no press conferences, etc. They couldn’t hide it in the debate and we can’t unsee it. And the DNC once again shoved a candidate down our throats (by discouraging anyone else to run in the primary) and we’ll lose to Trump again (just like they did in 2016 with Clinton). Don’t come for me about the last sentence, I love her and think she would be a great president but independents did not, said they did not and the DNC still went full steam ahead because it was “her turn”.
Yes, all those people voted for Biden in the primary but (1) that was without any real alternatives and (2) that was before the debate and we had the full picture of his mental and physical state.
I’m also mad (so mad!) that Biden has not spent the last four years building Harris up so every one of his wins are her wins. That he didn’t champion her. Instead he sidelined her with unwinnable projects and silenced her (Ezra Klein recently had a full episode on what has gone one behind the scenes regarding the administration and Harris).
I fully believe we will lose if Biden doesn’t step aside and he will erase his 60 year legacy of public service. This is what he will be remembered for.
But what about the press conference? the interview with Lester Holt? The speeches he’s been giving? There is really no sign of cognitive decline. There is some physical decline but that is natural with age.
There is no real way for Biden to step aside and if he does, we will lose. 100%.
Thanks for shitting on all of the voters who chose him for 2020 and again in this year’s primaries. And let’s stop this BS about no other choices. No one challenged him. And that’s on the party not Joe. They knew he was old. So let’s see. They kick Joe and Kamala off the ticket – because this is also about the Vice President. The new unicorn won’t have access to their campaign money, so can’t mount a campain. Early voting starts…a week after the convention. They won’t be able to get the new nominee’s name on the ballot in time in Ohio for one and that’s just the start. The GOP already said they will sue if he steps aside. But sure, go on and talk about how easy it would be to replace him. Show me one president who spent time building up their VP before their own time was up. If people were interested in all of the good works VP Harris was doing they could look it up. The media sure isn’t going to cover it. But yes, let’s blame Biden instead of the big money donor class, the racist dems in office, who are also going belly up because they are scared of losing that sweet, sweet donor money, and the media’s complicity in this. People are failing to understand that this is not about Biden or Harris. Oh, they also don’t have any idea about who they will shoehorn in there. Being old is not a disability. Biden’s campaign is reaching out to young people. In PA the campaign hired its first sm manager and they are pushing out videos that are authentic because they are not being given talking points, but expressing their own points of view. If only all of these folks would, oh I don’t know, focus their energy on TRUMP… what an idea.
Biden has disclosed his health issues, FFS. He has a stutter, which significantly impacts his speech/debate performance. He has lower spine arthritis, which affects his gait and mobility. He is old. And he had covid, during the debate. You can knock his covid policies (which you should), but accusing him of not disclosing his health conditions is baseless.
Thank you Mary Ann.
I currently live in Canada but vote thru PA.
I have loved Biden since his first term in the Senate. I voted (by mail) in the last election just Because it was Biden. He has been one of the best presidents ever. But that was then, and this is now.
Biden cannot seem to complete A full sentence or paragraph. I don’t think he has ‘lost it’ mentally but he is unable to verbalize. If you cannot speak, you cannot reasonably debate or even campaign. A few days ago, in Nevada, he couldn’t even correctly read the teleprompter.
His gait is stiff, his walk is slow and his eyes are poor. This is no way to run a campaign much less the country. Even if you want to give him the benefit of the doubt, you have to ask what he will be like in one year/two years/three years etc. He is just not viable as a candidate this time around and I’m po’d about those surrounding him keeping his condition hidden.
Latest polls show ANY Younger Democrat beating the OrangeMan. Biden, trails him. Time for Joe to take a well earned rest.
Biden has lower spine arthritis, which affects his gait and mobility. That has absolutely nothing to do with his ability to govern the country. FDR couldn’t even walk, FFS. And Biden had covid, during the debate. He went on to very successful campaign events and a successful NATO meeting, where had no trouble completing sentences.
Not only did he have a successful NATO meeting, he spent 1+ hour answering questions at a press conference afterwards. Sounded perfectly lucid to me while he stood and answered some really nasty gotcha questions from journalists, including about his fitness. Somebody asked him about Gretchen Whitmer saying he should have a neurological test (who knew she was a doctor?) He described a test he had in February, and other medical examinations, info released to public; how many tests should he have? CNN jerkface David Sanger admitted to colleague that he asked about China-Russian association relative to Ukraine just to see if Biden could answer the question – of course Biden could and did answer the question, but refused to detail means or methods.
Here’s the deal kiddos – we have 2 old and mentally questionable white men who are running. No shiny new candidate is coming to save us 1 month before the dnc and anyone will tell you it’s a bad idea to switch horses mid race. It’s not even mid, we’re rounding the last bend. Dems need to drop the hand wringing anxiety and get the donors in line. Because “but Biden is old” is becoming the “but her emails” of 2024. So here we are. You want the old man who blatantly lies, is in the pocket of the Kremlin, will support a federal ban that takes away your reproductive freedom, and has NO agenda for his second term beyond vindictiveness? Or do you want the guy who walks stiffly and had one bad debate? Seriously! If the media hadn’t jumped all over this it would’ve been forgotten a week ago.
Up until 1972, all Presidential candidates were chosen at the convention! It’s not a crazy idea since it served us well, some might say even better than the current system. Conventions gave us FDR and JFK. The idea that candidates must be chosen months in advance is a modern notion with no evidence that you get better results that way.
It also gave us Nixon.
Here, here!
Mary Ann, Fifi, and Renae: thank you for excellent summaries of the situation. If Joe Biden is being helped by HRC, it makes me even more furious that he has yet to award her The Presidential Medal of Freedom which she has earned over and over again, apparently because he’s mad at her for running in 2016. Yes, he can be that petty.
I love the picture of the two American Presidents together (NEVER FORGET: Clinton won the popular vote!)
I love Joe Biden. I supported him early in the 2020 primary because I thought that he was the only one who could beat an incumbent.
I support Joe Biden in the 2024 election. I think he is the only one who can beat the former president.
I have been emailing the White House to tell Biden to stay in the race.
Please join me and contact the White House by email and telephone to encourage Biden to stay in the race.
I also contacted Adam Schiff’s office and one of his staffers to relay my disapproval of Schiff calling for Biden to drop out.