Calls for President Joe Biden to drop out have gotten so close to his inner circle that some in the White House know he ‘can’t’ run in 2024 and want to give in the ‘grace’ to step down, top Democrats say.
Key figures in the 81-year-old’s president party wants a new candidate on the ticket to prevent an electoral bloodbath against Donald Trump in November 2024.
More than 30 Democrats have called from him to step aside and have started to make astonishing claims about his cognitive decline.
The West Wing is under tremendous pressure to figure out a way forward and is now ‘divided’ over whether Biden call it quits, insiders say.
‘Most of them know. Some of them will say, Oh calm down. But most of them will say: Oh he can’t do it, just give him the grace,’ said Johanna Maska, former director of White House press advance under Barack Obama.
‘It’s very divided. It’s got to be hard for all of them right now,’ she told DailyMail.com.
On a day when 11 House Democrats and counting called for Biden to step back, she referenced one longtime aide who called to ‘just give him the grace to make the decision himself instead of just everyone coming out like this.’
A rift inside the party over President Biden’s future was evident Friday as a string of lawmakers called on him to step back. Sources also point to divisions inside the White House itself over the best way forward
‘I believe that they do know. And I believe that Biden doesn’t want to watch the debate because he knows how bad it was,’ said the host of the Press Advance podcast.
‘My phone has been ringing constantly from incumbent House Democrats across the country. The ones in the swing districts feel like they’re between the proverbial rock and a hard place,’ former New York Rep. Steve Israel, who used to chair the House Democratic campaign arm, told DailyMail.com.
‘The Republicans are cruising to their destination and we’re like in the back seat bickering over whether we should turn off at the next offramp,’ said Israel, now at the Institute of Politics at Cornell University.
‘It’s a doom loop. Every week builds a more negative narrative than the week before,’ he said. As for Biden, ‘I feel like the narrative is overtaking him at this point.’
The latest indications of inner turmoil come amid reports that members of Biden’s family have been discussing what an exit would look like – with Party members split on whether a Biden withdrawal would amount to handing the wheel to Kamala Harris with an endorsement or setting up a newfangled process.
That followed reports that even members of Biden’s cabinet were holding ‘private discussions’ about whether staff should intercede, and a House member saying the message is getting through to Biden
There are risks that the increasingly public pressure – which involved a volley of op-eds and lawmakers statements saluting Biden but calling him to go – could blow up spectacularly and depress some of the millions of voters who cast their ballots for Biden and who Biden needs to animate again in battleground states where he is trailing Donald Trump.
‘It also could discourage a lot of people,’ Democratic strategist ‘Antjuan Seawright told DailyMail.com.
‘This could backfire in such a way that it doesn’t help us for the greater good and the greater good is winning the election up and down the ballot.
Pass the torch? Vice President Kamala Harris and her two grandnieces went out for ice cream Friday – a favorite pass-time of President Biden, who is in isolation with COVID
Some Democrats have asked how Donald Trump, 78, has built on his polling lead over Biden, 81, even while facing multiple criminal prosecutions
Asked about Biden’s state, Seawright vouched for the 81-year old president’s energy on the stump as the president deals with a COVID-19 diagnoses after slowly walking down the smaller stairs of Air Force One after diverting to his Delaware beach House.
‘I spent time with the president interacting with voters. The Joe Biden I’ve seen is the Joe Biden I’ve seen campaigning in South Carolina just a few months ago for the primary,’ he said. ‘It’s crystal clear that while lawmakers may have one opinion, voters who ultimately decide the fate of lawmakers have a totally different opinion.’
Officials have spoken to Vice President Kamala Harris’ total loyalty to Biden as he struggles. But there was a show of how Biden could one day pass the torch to her when she stopped at an ice cream shop – indulging in his favorite treat Friday.
‘By this weekend, it’s going to be Nixon-land,’ quipped one longtime Senate leadership aide at the Republican convention.
It was another brutal day for the Biden camp Friday as Democrats came out publicly against him hours after Donald Trump delivered a 92-minute speech accepting the Republican nomination.
Inside the White House there are calls to ‘just give him the grace’ to make a decision, said former Obama official Johanna Maska
In one brutal assessment, Rep. Seth Moulton (D-Mass.) said Biden didn’t appear to recognize him when they met for the D-Day commemoration at Normandy in June.
‘For the first time, he didn’t seem to recognize me,’ Moulton wrote in an op-ed. ‘Of course, that can happen as anyone ages, but as I watched the disastrous debate a few weeks ago, I have to admit that what I saw in Normandy was part of a deeper problem,’ he continued. ‘It was a crushing realization, and not because a person I care about had a rough night but because everything is riding on Biden’s ability to beat Donald Trump in November.’
‘I know that he wants to beat Donald Trump, the problem is all that data is pointing in the other direction,’ Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), a Nancy Pelosi loyalist and House January 6 Committee member told MSNBC.
Before the day was over, another at-risk incumbent, Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio, added his name to the roster of elected officials calling for Biden to go, after avoiding taking sides publicly. ‘I agree with the many Ohioans who have reached out to me. At this critical time, our full attention must return to these important issues. I think the President shoudl end his campaign.’
The Biden campaign acknowledged the difference of opinion in a statement.
‘While the majority of the caucus and the diverse base of the party continues to stand with the President and his historic record of delivering for their communities, we’re clear-eyed that the urgency and stakes of beating Donald Trump means others feel differently,’ said campaign spokeswoman Mia Ehrengerg.
‘We all share the same goal: an America where everyone gets a fair shot and freedom and democracy are protected. Unlike Republicans, we’re a party that accepts – and even celebrates – differing opinions, but in the end, we will absolutely come together to beat Donald Trump this November.’
Said Biden campaign chair Jen O’Malley Dillon: ‘You have heard from the President directly time and again: He is in this race to win, and he is our nominee, and he’s going to be our President for a second term.’
