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'He Will Never Recover': Total Mayhem Engulfs Biden's Re-Election Team

Matt Vespa
Matt Vespa  |  July 12, 2024 2:30 PM

Is the Biden campaign becoming the political version of the OceanGate expedition? Everyone sees an implosion is imminent, but the captain remains adamant that they can continue until it’s too late. Joe Biden remains defiant, determined to take on Trump again despite the president trailing Trump in all key battleground states, a dismal approval rating in the low 30s, with 75 percent of voters thinking he’s too old to run. That’s on top of the mass defections among black Democrats under the age of 50, the loss of Hispanic men, lackluster labor union support—Teamsters President Sean O’Brien is set to speak at the Republican Convention next week—and a Muslim voter rebellion in the Rust Belt over the war in Gaza. The Obama coalition has been bludgeoned to death by Biden, and he doesn’t have the stamina, political skill, or intelligence to piece it together—he has no time. He must fend off the wolves in his party who want to dump him.

He did so-so at the NATO presser. That’s not to say he did well. It was a repeat of the ABC News interview: a trainwreck, though not devastating enough to make the case to drop him non-debatable. It’s political purgatory for Democrats, who could rip themselves to shreds until Election Day. NBC News and The New York Times both got wind that Biden’s re-election effort is imploding, with longtime aides seeing no path to victory (via NYT): 

President Biden found himself increasingly isolated on Thursday as a small group of his longtime aides and advisers have become convinced that he will have to make what they see as the painful but inevitable decision to abandon his campaign for re-election, according to three people who have been briefed on the matter. 

In recent days, the group has been trying to come up with ways to persuade Mr. Biden to step aside from the campaign. Those discussions were recounted by three people familiar with them who, like others in this article, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive situation. There is no indication that any of the discussions have reached Mr. Biden himself, one of the informed people said. 

The effort comes after a disastrous debate performance in Atlanta two weeks ago plunged Mr. Biden’s candidacy into crisis. He is facing pressure from all sides: Lawmakers on Capitol Hill are vacillating between tepid support and outright calls for him to drop out, and those calls were being echoed by some of the wealthiest donors in the party. 

At the center of it all is Mr. Biden, who is convinced that he is the only one who can beat former President Donald J. Trump, according to people familiar with this thinking, and who is unlikely to be persuaded otherwise by people outside his insular inner circle, which includes his family. 

He faced a new test on Thursday night in a news conference following the NATO summit in Washington. In an early stumble before it even got underway, Mr. Biden flubbed his introduction of President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, saying: “Ladies and gentlemen, President Putin.” He quickly caught himself. 

During the news conference, he referred to “Vice President Trump” when he meant Vice President Kamala Harris, a mistake that former President Donald J. Trump immediately mocked on social media. 

NBC News was grimmer, with advisers quoted as seeing no path to victory. 

“He has to drop out,” said one campaign official who saw the damage done by the June 27 debate with Donald Trump, the collapse of fundraising, and the internal divisions within the Democratic Party as factors that make his re-election effort beyond unsustainable: 

Several of President Joe Biden’s closest allies, including three people who are directly involved in efforts to re-elect him, told NBC News they now see his chances of winning as zero — and the likelihood of him taking down fellow Democratic candidates growing. 

“He needs to drop out,” one Biden campaign official said. “He will never recover from this.” 

For two weeks, Biden has struggled to stabilize his campaign following a late-June debate debacle. His ongoing clean-up effort, which is scheduled to include top aides meeting privately with Democratic senators and a presidential news conference Thursday, has done little to reassure lawmakers and party officials. 

Instead, the reverse is happening. 

The set of Democrats who think he should reconsider his decision to stay in the race has grown to include aides, operatives and officials tasked with guiding his campaign to victory. Those who spoke to NBC News said the sentiment that he should exit and leave the Democratic nomination to someone else — most likely Vice President Kamala Harris — is widespread even within the ranks of the campaign and the outside Democratic entities supporting it. 

“No one involved in the effort thinks he has a path,” said a second person working to elect him. 

A third person close to the re-election campaign said the present situation — the questions swirling around Biden’s cognitive abilities, the dearth of fundraising and more polls showing Biden dropping in support and other candidates faring better — is unsustainable. This person also said they didn’t see how the campaign could win. 

Biden's campaign and White House spokespersons vociferously denied these accounts, but given that this crew can’t explain why a Parkinson’s Disease expert visited the official residence multiple times, who should believe anything from these folks? Also, they’d never admit it, just like Biden was in perfect health, sharp as a tack, and did mental somersaults behind closed doors. No one believes that now. 

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Fundraising is in trouble, a large swath of Democrats don’t want Biden to run anymore, the base is fractured, and the president’s abilities have degraded immensely. No wonder why staffers here are on the verge of mental breakdowns.

Also, really, guys: