Donors and Democrats despair as bid to oust Biden fails

Among the growing ranks of Democrats, one thing is certain: President Joe Biden cannot continue as the party’s presumptive nominee, or they will lose to Donald Trump in November. Much less certain is how to remove him.

On Tuesday, a president known for his obstinacy offered a reminder of how difficult it can be to unseat him, as he and his team unleashed a desperate campaign — on the airwaves and behind the scenes — to win back the support of some wavering Democrats in Congress.

To the extent that they succeeded, they only deepened the agony that has gripped many Democrats since the president’s catastrophic debate performance against Trump nearly two weeks ago.

In the immediate aftermath, many Biden detractors took solace in the fact that the president and his team would soon bow to what they saw as the inevitable — driven by a steady drip of negative poll results and televised medical diagnoses — and step aside. Now, the growing perception that the president is entrenching himself is instilling a maelstrom of confusion, despair and anger in the party.

“This isn’t just about whether the president is fit to serve or run. The fear among everyone I’m talking to is that Biden’s intransigence will drag out close races in the House and Senate and endanger democracy itself,” said Gideon Stein, a prominent Democratic entrepreneur and donor, explaining the existential fear that party members attribute to another Trump presidency.

Another prominent donor accused Biden and his team of “playing Russian roulette with the world at stake,” while a former senior member of the Democratic National Committee described the president’s behavior as that of “a mad king.”

Within the Biden campaign, some have succumbed to the same hunch. At least one senior staffer told friends in recent days that he believed the effort was now doomed, despite the president’s defiant public statements.

Following the debate, there were reports of Biden family members blaming longtime aides for the president’s poor performance, as well as arguments between campaign staff and the White House over the president’s travel schedule.

Meanwhile, talk of the gains from victory — ambassadorships and senior administration posts — has given way to concerns about being accused of covering up from the public the extent of Biden’s decline.

“Now that things have gotten worse, they’re worried that crazy Republicans are going to try to weaponize things and attack them in every way possible,” said a person who spoke directly to three Biden campaign operatives. Discussions about whether they should stay with the campaign or jump ship were now active, this person added.

Kevin Munoz, a spokesman for the Biden campaign, said he was “working very hard because in winning campaigns you work very hard.” He added: “There is an immense sense of pride in our office because we know how important and critical the work we are doing here is to the fate of our democracy.”

In recent days, Biden’s team has largely ignored Trump and focused its attention on Capitol Hill, where the president and his team have struggled to prevent further defections from their party brethren.

On Tuesday, some prominent officials emerged from a two-hour Democratic caucus meeting to pledge their loyalty — from the young Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to the veteran Jerrold Nadler, both from New York.

“The president made it very clear yesterday that he is running. To me, that is a deal-breaker; we have to support him,” Nadler said. Two days earlier, on a conference call called by Hakeem Jeffries, the House Democratic leader, Nadler was one of seven senior lawmakers who called on the president to end his campaign, according to a fellow lawmaker. Nadler did not comment on his apparent change of heart, saying only that Biden’s record was “excellent” and that Trump would be a “danger to democracy.”

The Tuesday morning meeting was described by attendees as “somber” and “funereal.” One indication of the party’s ongoing distrust was that members of Congress were not allowed to bring their phones inside. Maxwell Frost, a 27-year-old first-term representative from Florida, said he was encouraged by a discussion with Anita Dunn, one of the president’s top aides and most knowledgeable Washington source, after Biden spoke to the Congressional Black Caucus on Monday night.

“She made me feel really good,” Frost said, noting that the campaign would soon launch a $50 million ad blitz and had plans to get Biden out on the road. They discussed “how do we make sure this moment doesn’t last too long? How do we make sure we recover from this? Because we got hit by it in some of these battleground states.”

But others have kept quiet, preferring not to show their cards. Meanwhile, in the shadows, there has been much talk of letters being drafted by various heavyweights urging the president to step aside. That seemed unlikely before Thursday, at the end of this week’s NATO summit in Washington, when the president will hold what the White House has called “a big boy’s press conference.” Biden will face the press corps without the security of a teleprompter: another high-stakes test of his fitness for office.

Yet some were already bracing for an inconclusive outcome that would leave the party in the same predicament: Biden would perform poorly enough to allay concerns about his fitness for office — but not so disastrously that the case for his removal would become urgent and irrefutable. “A lot of people told themselves he could pull it off and it wasn’t that bad,” said one Democratic lobbyist, reflecting on the past 12 days. “Now it’s hard to say that.”

Via Financial Times