An Obama-era White House staffer confirmed Thursday that he had been approached about joining Rep. Dean Phillips’s (D-MN) potential primary challenge to President Joe Biden in 2024.
Bill Burton, who served as deputy press security in the Obama administration when Biden was vice president, revealed that he dismissed Phillips’s overture.
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“To be clear, this is not something I took seriously even for a second. Someone asked for a conversation and I wasn’t willing to have one,” Burton wrote on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter.
To be clear, this is not something I took seriously even for a second. Someone asked for a conversation and I wasn’t willing to have one. https://t.co/mEHs8dh2ge
— Bill Burton (@billburton) October 19, 2023
Burton was responding to the Messenger’s report that Phillips’s political team was actively recruiting staff for a primary challenge to Biden.
The representative’s political team did not provide confirmation or comment to the Washington Examiner.
Aside from being on former President Barack Obama’s White House press team, Burton has a long history as a Democratic operative and had worked on Obama’s 2008 campaign before his election.
The publication also alleged Phillips’s team approached Steve Schmidt, one of the co-founders of the anti-Trump group the Lincoln Project. Schmidt was also once a senior adviser to former Sen. John McCain’s 2008 presidential bid.
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This comes as Phillips continues to call for Democrats to step up and challenge Biden in the 2024 Democratic primary, pointing to polls that indicate Biden is not wanted by a majority of the country. “I would like to see Joe Biden, a wonderful and remarkable man, pass the torch — cement this extraordinary legacy,” he said in August.
Phillips has been encouraging more prominent Democrats, including governors, to run against the president but also said he wasn’t ruling out his own bid. None of these Democrats have since entered the primary race, and reports have surfaced of the congressman preparing to launch his campaign against Biden.
