As Joe Biden recovered at his Rehoboth Beach, Delaware beach house from a reported bout of COVID, he and his aides at first maintained a united front and staunchly insisted that he would remain in the presidential race despite his disastrous debate performance, halting TV interviews, and plummeting poll numbers.
Meanwhile his former opponent Donald Trump was riding high after surviving an assassination attempt and igniting much of the country with his cry to “Fight, fight!” just moments after being hit in the ear by a sniper’s bullet. That, in addition to a successful Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, which showcased a unified party, seemed to increase the sense that the momentum was all on the side of the GOP.
Through it all, the president refused to bow out gracefully and vowed to battle on, while his power-hungry wife Jill and his craven son Hunter adamantly pushed him to hold on to the trappings of the office. But finally, at long last, even Old Joe saw the writing on the wall.
He no longer had a chance.
Politico described the fateful evening, and revealed how it was the influence of Biden’s relatively unknown aides that finally turned the tide.
Early Saturday, Biden told senior aides it was “full steam ahead” for the campaign. But by later that evening, he had changed his mind following a long discussion with his two closest aides.
Steve Ricchetti, who’s been with Biden since his days in the Senate, drove to see the president at his house on the Delaware shore on Friday. Mike Donilon arrived on Saturday. The two men, both of whom had been by Biden’s side during key decisions about whether to seek the presidency in 2016 and 2020, sat at a distance from the president, still testing positive for Covid, and presented damning new information in a meeting that would hasten the end of Biden’s political career.
In addition to presenting new concerns from lawmakers and updates on a fundraising operation that had slowed considerably, they carried the campaign’s own polls, which came back this week and showed his path to victory in November was gone, according to five people familiar with the matter, who, like others interviewed for this article, were granted anonymity to discuss private conversations.
The jig was up.
While there has been much laudatory commentary regarding his decision from Democrat politicians and the lapdog media, describing his stepping away from his campaign as “heroic” and “patriotic,” he once again showed his true colors in the way he announced his momentous conclusion: he didn’t even personally tell most his staff.
The only other people with Biden in the residence when he arose Sunday were first lady Jill Biden and two other trusted aides: deputy chief of staff Annie Tomasini and assistant to the first lady Anthony Bernal. At 1:45 p.m., he notified a somewhat larger group of close aides that he had decided the night before to end his quest for another term, reading his letter and thanking them for their service. A minute later, before any other campaign and White House staffers could be notified, he posted the historic letter from his campaign account on the social media site X.
Biden’s announcement stunned White House and campaign aides, who up until this afternoon were insisting he’d stay in the race.
“We’re all finding out by tweet,” said one Dem. “None of us understand what’s happening.” https://t.co/VHphH6HPNL
— POLITICO (@politico) July 21, 2024
Related: Incredible Report About How WH Aides and Campaign Officials Found Out About Biden Stepping Aside
Debunking the Remaining Myth: Biden Has Never Been a ‘Decent Man’
It wasn’t only the belated realization that he could not win that caused Biden to walk away, it was the power of Consigliere Pelosi who helped turn the tide. It’s beyond my comprehension why this extremist octogenarian California politician holds such sway, considering that she regularly spews venomous bile on cable news talk shows, often seems like she’s had a few glasses of Chardonnay, and constantly does that weird sucking thing with her lips (who else in American history has ripped up the State of the Union speech of a sitting president on the House floor?). But her influence is apparently still vast on Capitol Hill.
Senior Biden aides were bracing for former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), who’d worked behind the scenes to encourage others in the party toward the kind of collective action that might finally push the president to end his campaign, to go public this week and possibly even disclose Democratic polling clarifying Biden’s dire political straits.
“Nancy made clear that they could do this the easy way or the hard way,” said one Democrat familiar with private conversations who was granted anonymity to speak candidly. “She gave them three weeks of the easy way. It was about to be the hard way.”
The Democrat power brokers – chief among them, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), Pelosi, former president Barack Obama, and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY)—have finally gotten what they wanted. They’ve pushed Joe to the side in a manner as un-Democratic as you’ll ever see.
However, they maybe should have paid close attention to that old adage, “Be careful what you wish for,” because they’re quickly finding out that the way forward is extremely complicated, and unless the party quickly fully embraces VP Kamala Harris as Joe’s replacement, it is also likely to be extremely combative.
The race is far from over, and stunning events seem to be the norm this July. That being said, if you’re a Republican, you’re feeling very positive indeed about the chances of taking our country back and preventing the progressives from further running the nation into the ground.
Tighten your seatbelts—this wild ride is far from over.
