Since the dam on President Joe Biden’s senility burst during the 90-minute disaster that was the first presidential debate on June 27, the president has been adamant he’s staying in office.
He’s done an interview blitz in which he said only the “Lord Almighty” could cause him to drop out. (That interview blitz was filled with gaffes that should have tipped him off to the fact the “Lord Almighty” was giving him a nudge, but never mind.)
His campaign wrote an open letter to congressional Democrats making clear that he’d won the nomination fair and square and that to overturn the lower-case-D democratic process would be unethical. (There were no other major candidates, however, and anyone who even tested the waters was shunned by the party.) He told donors, he was “done talking about the debate” and that it was time to stop focusing on him and “put Trump in a bullseye.” (He would later have to apologize after Trump survived an assassination attempt and reporters noted Biden and his team had decried Trump’s far more innocuous use of the word “bloodbath” as a metaphor for trade imbalances during a speech months ago.)
But now, finally, it appears Biden might be waking up to the harsh realities that he can’t continue as nominee — and that a plan B is urgently called for.
According to a late Wednesday dispatch by CNN, Biden reportedly asked advisers during a discussion aboard Air Force One whether he should listen to calls to step aside from his own party — the first sign that the president is seriously considering moving aside.
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Furthermore, CNN reported, behind-the-scenes conversations in Washington, D.C., have seen the president much more “receptive” to stepping aside than his public stance would indicate.
The discussions on Wednesday happened after Biden cut a trip to Nevada short after testing positive for COVID-19, Reuters reported.
“He is vaccinated and boosted and experiencing mild symptoms,” said White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre.
Should Joe Biden step aside as the Democratic nominee?
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However, the trip to Las Vegas didn’t go without its share of Bidenisms, even before he tested positive for the virus. He couldn’t remember the name of Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin or former President Herbert Hoover during an interview with Black Entertainment Television, according to the New York Post — referring to the former simply as “the black man.”
BIDEN: “Look at the heat I’m getting because I, I named a, uh, the, uh, secretary of defense — the black man” 🥴 pic.twitter.com/PJYzDznpIV
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) July 18, 2024
In addition, Biden suffered the biggest Democrat defection yet on Wednesday, when Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff of California — likely the state’s next senator and a close ally of former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi — said he should step aside.
Schiff said it was time for Biden “to pass the torch” and “secure his legacy of leadership” by letting another Democrat have the nomination.
Other signs on Wednesday — including Democrats pushing back a virtual nomination process that would have secured Biden’s place on the ballot before the convention began and calls from mega-donors to suspend donations to the president’s re-election campaign — seemed to indicate the writing was on the wall.
“He’s gone from saying, ‘Kamala can’t win,’ to ‘Do you think Kamala can win?’” a senior Democratic adviser said, CNN reported.
“It’s still unclear where he’s going to land but seems to be listening.”
There likely still remain problems for the transition in Biden’s inner circle. Harris’ progressive base is far from the Rust Belt states the Democrats need to carry to win the election, and Trump’s selection of Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance as his running mate only makes her chances in the Midwest more difficult. In addition, before Biden’s meltdown on the debate stage, Harris polled worse than the president against Trump, and any bump in recent polls for the veep can only be attributed to comparison to a man whose mental and physical collapse is happening in real time on 24-hour cable news.
The Democratic adviser added that back-channel conversations with congressional Democrats have been ongoing.
“The private conversations with the Hill are continuing,” the adviser said. “He’s being receptive, not as defiant as he is publicly.”
So, of course, the White House was defiant publicly.
“If the facts matter — and they should — here is one: President Biden is the Democratic nominee, and he is going to win this November,” Biden spokesman Kevin Munoz said.
However, this comes on top of Schiff’s defection, reports that Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has told Biden that he should leave the race, and the fact that Biden is now sidelined during what’s arguably the most important week of campaigning if he still wishes to salvage his campaign.
Where this will go from here is anyone’s guess — and a procession from Biden to Harris would not be guaranteed or neat, however you slice it — but for the first time, what’s been clear to everyone but Joe Biden about Joe Biden seems to be coming into focus for the man himself.
