As President Biden huddles in the COVID bunker, the dam has broken. Congressional Democrats nationwide have called on the president to step down after another round of dismal polling shows that the Delaware liberal has become an albatross around the neck of the party. He’s a weight sinking Democrats down ballot, and Nancy Pelosi is among some of the main figures behind the plot. Biden is reportedly seething in isolation over this pressure campaign, but one Democrat is getting under his skin: Barack Obama (via NYT):
Sick with Covid and abandoned by allies, President Biden has been fuming at his Delaware beach house, increasingly resentful about what he sees as an orchestrated campaign to drive him out of the race and bitter toward some of those he once considered close, including his onetime running mate Barack Obama.
Mr. Biden has been around politics long enough to assume that the leaks appearing in the media in recent days are being coordinated to raise the pressure on him to step aside, according to people close to him. He considers Representative Nancy Pelosi, the former House speaker, the main instigator, but is irritated at Mr. Obama as well, seeing him as a puppet master behind the scenes.
The friction between the sitting president and leaders of his own party so close to an election is unlike anything seen in Washington in generations — especially because the Democrats now working to ease him out were some of the allies most critical to his success over the last dozen years. It was Mr. Obama who elevated Mr. Biden from a presidential also-ran to the vice presidency, setting him up to win the White House in 2020, and it was Ms. Pelosi and Senator Chuck Schumer, the Senate Democratic leader, who pushed through his landmark legislative achievements.
But several people close to Mr. Biden, who insisted on anonymity to discuss internal matters, described an under-the-weather president coughing and hacking hundreds of miles from the corridors of power as his presidency meets its most perilous moment.
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While Mr. Biden and his team publicly insist that he is staying in the race, privately people close to him have said that he is increasingly accepting that he may not be able to, and some have begun discussing dates and venues for a possible announcement that he is stepping aside.
One factor that may stretch out a decision: Advisers believe that Mr. Biden would not want to do it before Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel visits Washington on Wednesday at the initiative of Republicans to address Congress, unwilling to give the premier the satisfaction given their strained relations lately over the Gaza war.
Yet Mr. Biden bristles at pressure and those pushing him risk getting his back up and prompting him to remain after all. Two people familiar with his thinking said he had not changed his mind as of Friday afternoon.
In privately railing about Mr. Obama and even aides to former President Bill Clinton, Mr. Biden has made clear that he finds it particularly rich that the architects of historic Democratic losses in the 1994 and 2010 midterm elections would be lecturing him about how to save the party after he presided over a better-than-expected midterm in 2022. While one person said Mr. Biden is not irked at Mr. Clinton himself, others said Mr. Obama is another story.
Again, Biden refuses to accept responsibility, and it’s becoming irritating how arrogant this president has become, thinking he’s some elite leader when he’s really the t-shirt of the week. This 12th-place finisher thinks he’s number one. Biden has never been that, and never will. There’s a reason why Obama’s staffers mocked him endlessly: he’s “just a guy,” a JAG.
House Democrats are all but resigned to a second Trump presidency, with some actively shifting strategies to campaign as a ‘check on Trump’ to save their campaigns
His age has caught up with him, and that June 27 debate is not being taken seriously enough among the president’s inner circle. It firmly entrenched the 70-plus percent who thought he was too old to run again. Biden is also facing a revolt among the rank-and-file, with 65 percent of Democrats thinking he needs to go. His team announced he’s committed to the race, but other members of the party and the public writ large know it’s over.
Before the June 27 massacre of Biden by Trump, Obama attended an LA fundraiser with him, and this is how he felt about it:
Mr. Obama last saw Mr. Biden at a lavish, record-setting Hollywood fund-raiser before the debate in June, when the two appeared onstage together. At the end, Mr. Obama appeared to be leading Mr. Biden offstage. One former Obama aide who was present that night said that it was clear that the former president was startled and shaken by how much Mr. Biden had aged and seemed disoriented.