President Joe Biden was pushed off the ticket, and on Monday, when he was set to pass the torch to his vice president during the first night of the Democratic National Convention, he was pushed out of his prime time spot, too, angering aides.
Axios claimed the late hour “reopened the wounds" for some of his allies, quoting a longtime Biden aide as texting: “This is awful. He literally set up a campaign and handed it over to them—do they have to cut him out of prime time?”
As Politico pointed out, that meant the speech was screened late—finishing at 12.20 am ET—in swing states like Pennsylvania, Michigan, Georgia, and North Carolina, “on a night that was supposed to be all about thanking him.”
“I think these guys have a big scheduling problem,” a veteran Democrat told Politico as the clock ticked toward midnight. “Do they realize the universe runs on East Coast time?”
Election forecaster Nate Silver suggested the scheduling was a conspiracy, posting on X, formerly known as Twitter, that “you’ve gotta be pretty naive to think the prolonged DNC tonight is for any reason other than diminishing Biden’s visibility.”
“Like how pilled do you have to be to think it’s just a coincidence that the President of the United States doesn’t speak until so late,” he added in a second post. (Daily Beast)
Organizers released a statement that didn’t do much to ease concerns among Biden loyalists.
"Because of the raucous applause interrupting speaker after speaker, we ultimately skipped elements of our program to ensure we could get to President Biden as quickly as possible so that he could speak directly to the American people," the statement said. "We are proud of the electric atmosphere in our convention hall and proud that our convention is showcasing the broad and diverse coalition behind the Harris-Walz ticket throughout the week on and off the stage."
A CNN panel openly laughed at the claim.
"That's amazing spin," one panelist noted.
