President Joe Biden has been holding a series of calls with the various factions in the House Democratic Caucus, and they’ve not gone well. The call with the Congressional Hispanic Caucus devolved into total mayhem last week. On top of being late to the call, Rep. Mike Levin (D-CA) called on Biden to step aside directly, leading to the call's abruptly ending. No one could ask the president questions. It was very much the controlled, guard-railed, and staged antics that have marked this presidency. It’s all a show, with no real action or governing.
A call with the Congressional Progressive Caucus had this awkward moment. Like his issues with the teleprompter and reading everything on it a la Ron Burgundy, Biden read a private staff note aloud to everyone participating. The note read, “Stay positive—you are sounding defensive.” And finally, a call with moderate Democrats was described as “awful” and a “total disaster.”
During @JoeBiden’s call with the Congressional Progressive Caucus, the president said his staff passed him a note to “stay positive you are sounding defensive.” Biden read the note aloud to participants on the call.
— Jake Sherman (@JakeSherman) July 13, 2024
Things got especially confrontational when Rep. Jason Crow (D-CO) brought up the crisis in confidence in Biden being our commander-in-chief. Crow, a veteran with a Bronze Star, was excoriated by Biden, who trashed his service and once again used his dead son as some political playing card. The contents of the calls were not known until now. What a nasty piece of work Biden is. Mr. Empathy is a total a-hole, but you knew that already (via Axios):
CNN; Biden gets nasty w/ Bronze Star Democrat @JasonCrowCO on “absolute disaster” Zoom Call, tells him to “cut that crap out” after Crow voiced concern about Biden’s diminished abilities. pic.twitter.com/1X0w1MUYYH
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) July 17, 2024
Biden got particularly animated towards a question from Rep. Jason Crow (D-Colo.) about slipping public confidence in his leadership as commander-in-chief, according to several members in the meeting.
"That was a complete disaster. We saw the same Joe Biden from the debate," said one House Democrat on the call.
"It was awful," said another lawmaker.
A third told Axios: "Members were not holding back ... it got tense with Crow for sure."
[…]
Crow's question prompted what two members described as "shouting" from Biden, who went off on a tangent and challenged the Coloradan to "name me a foreign leader who thinks I'm not the most effective leader."
"Tell me who the hell that is," Biden continued, without directly addressing Crow's question about voter confidence, saying it is "dead wrong" that foreign leaders lack confidence in him and exclaiming, "I don't want to hear that crap."
Said one member on the call: "He started shouting at Jason Crow for no reason."
A source familiar with Biden's answer stressed that the exchange ended on a positive note, with Biden saying: "If you're really getting input that I'm not strong enough, and I'd like to know more detail, because I want to deal with it."
[…]
Lawmakers who spoke to Axios about the New Democrats call said they found Biden's answers unsatisfying and are no more assured about his path to victory than they were coming into the call.
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Puck News has more:
.@juliaioffe reports.
— Alex Thompson (@AlexThomp) July 17, 2024
A recording of Biden telling Rep. Jason Crow: "Name me a foreign leader who thinks I’m not the most effective leader in the world on foreign policy. Tell me! Tell me who the hell that is! Tell me who put NATO back together!"https://t.co/5KJ3rEiAOp pic.twitter.com/HXn694T664
Biden went after a member of Congress and insulted his Bronze Star status. https://t.co/6YT4VNFeUn
— Stephen L. Miller (@redsteeze) July 17, 2024
Right before the Trump rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, a group of moderate Hill Democrats held a “tense” Zoom call with the White House to express their concern about Biden’s ability to win—and their ability to win, should he tank and take them down with him. “The call was even worse than the debate,” one of the participants told me. “He was rambling; he’d start an answer then lose his train of thought, then would just say ‘whatever.’ He really couldn’t complete an answer. I lost a ton of respect for him.” A second participant in the call confirmed this characterization. “The president was rambling, dismissive of concerns, unable or unprepared to present a campaign strategy, and had a particularly troubling exchange with Jason Crow—saying to him, ‘Tell me something you’ve never done with your Bronze Star like my son,’” this member of Congress told me. “Had the assassination attempt not occurred an hour later, I imagine 50 people on that Zoom were ready to come out publicly against him.” (Biden ended the call on Saturday, just after 5 p.m., by saying his staff told him it was time for mass. The attempted assassination happened shortly after 6 p.m.) A third participant confirmed the descriptions of the president’s demeanor during the call to my partner Abby Livingston.
Mr. President, you don’t have a Bronze Star. Your son wasn’t killed in Iraq. Stop trying to live, and score points vicariously through military service that you have never experienced. You got mad, so you attacked a man’s military record—what a lowlife move. I’m not even a veteran; I know that’s grossly offensive and borderline delusional. It’s psychopathic, though, in keeping with the antics of this degenerate family.
Joe was told he was special, a true leader of men, when he was a clown. He’s old, mentally declining, and incapable of doing the job, becoming gassed for the smallest of campaign trips. He was in Delaware after his short visit to Michigan—are you serious? The entire calendar should be filled with campaign events in battleground states—it’s not. And while there are some Hill Democrats that are vocal in their support, it’s those who are whispering that paint a damning picture of Joe’s standing within his party (via Puck News):
To say that the Democratic freak-out hasn’t abated is a rare understatement in a supremely, if justifiably, overheated moment. As of now, just five House Democrats—and only one from a swing district, Angie Craig of Minnesota—have publicly called for Biden to drop out, but the number of congressional incumbents privately convinced he can’t win is vastly higher.
An A+ Democratic Senate source of mine reckons that, of the 51 sitting Ds and independents aligned with the party in the upper chamber, no more than half a dozen (including Delawareans Chris Coons and Tom Carper, as well as John Fetterman, who spent today on the campaign trail in Pennsylvania with the president after colorfully advising his party’s naysayers “to get a spine or grow a set”) believe he still has a plausible chance in November and want him to stay in the race. The ratio on the House side, as best as I can tell, is roughly the same.
These antics aren’t what you want 16 weeks until Election Day.
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