‘California Mafia’ plays puppet master in ousting Biden and elevating Harris

The cruelest cut for President Joe Biden came at the hands of California Democrats who were the driving force behind his decision to abandon his reelection bid, relentlessly applying pressure to pass the torch to someone they believe could beat former President Donald Trump in November. 

Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) was widely seen as one of the grandees working behind the curtain to oust Biden, while her protege, Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), was one of the most prominent Democrats to call on Biden to withdraw.

By midday Monday, Pelosi and Schiff, dubbed the “California Mafia,” had endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris, another California Democrat, for the top of the ticket. 

‘Fingerprints are all over the knife’

House Democrats who had concerns about Biden’s ability to win looked to Pelosi to deliver the kill shot to the president’s sagging reelection campaign following a disastrous debate performance. 

Not only is the Capitol Hill veteran respected by colleagues in both parties, Pelosi’s steely, no-nonsense attitude was the jolt some believed Biden needed to pull out of the race. 

“That’s why some of us are going to Pelosi,” one House Democrat told Axios. “She’s a tough cookie. She’ll tell you like it is.”

Another called her a “f***ing power-broker.”

Politico put it bluntly: “We’ve covered Pelosi for a long time now and can tell you her fingerprints are all over the knife.” 

Another Democrat said Pelosi “made clear that they could do this the easy way or the hard way.”

“She gave them three weeks of the easy way. It was about to be the hard way,” the person said. 

Pelosi was part of a group of “super friends” made up of Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), Senate President Pro Tempore Patty Murray (D-WA), Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-SC), and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY).

Their goal was to make the case to whomever they could at the White House that Biden needed to step aside. 

The group not only pushed for Biden’s exit, but it also wanted to end the perception that the Democratic Party is fractured heading into the high-stakes election in November, when control of Congress is also up for grabs.

Several California Democrats in swing districts also got in line, saying they feared a landslide loss in the election that could drag down House and Senate Democrats. 

Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) of San Jose, California, a close ally of Pelosi, was one of five additional lawmakers who had issued separate statements by Friday afternoon as the pressure campaign ramped up.

On Sunday, Biden announced he would be a one-term president.  

“While it has been my intention to seek re-election, I believe it is in the best interest of my party and the country for me to stand down and focus entirely on fulfilling my duties as president for the remainder of my term,” he said in a statement.

Biden also called it “the greatest honor of my life to serve as your president.”

Hollywood

Biden’s two-term ambitions were also cut short by Hollywood heavyweights like George Clooney turning their backs on him. 

“I love Joe Biden. As a senator. As a vice president and as president. I consider him a friend, and I believe in him,” Clooney wrote in an unflinching piece for the New York Times. “But the one battle he cannot win is the fight against time. None of us can.”

“It’s devastating to say it, but the Joe Biden I was with three weeks ago at the fund-raiser was not the Joe ‘big F-ing deal’ Biden of 2010. He wasn’t even the Joe Biden of 2020. He was the same man we all witnessed at the debate,” Clooney added, saying that with Biden on the ticket, “we are not going to win in November.”

Actress Ashely Judd wrote a piece in USA Today asking for Biden to “gracefully step aside.” 

“The defense of our cherished rights and freedoms, the moral imperative that we do better by more people, and our bodies, cannot be left to voters who see and are frightened of the consequences of President Biden’s obvious limitations, or who are now not going to vote,” she wrote in the opinion piece. “We take the risk of an off night and minimize the warning signs at our gravest peril.”

When Harry Met Sally director Rob Reiner also called on Biden to step down.

“It’s time to stop f***ing around. If the Convicted Felon wins, we lose our Democracy. Joe Biden has effectively served US with honor, decency, and dignity. It’s time for Joe Biden to step down,” he wrote on social media.  

Silicon Valley

Democrats in Silicon Valley had been relatively quiet about Biden’s chances, while technology leaders such as Elon Musk and investors Ben Horowitz and Marc Andreessen, the influential founders of the California-based venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, said they were ready to pour millions into political groups supporting Trump. 

Horowitz and Andreessen said they met with Trump as well as members of Biden’s team and decided to put their money behind Trump, whose administration they believe would be more friendly to the cryptocurrency and artificial intelligence industries. 

Following the news of a new Democratic ticket, the floodgates in Silicon Valley opened up almost immediately to Harris. One Silicon Valley bundler raised more than $1 million over a 30-minute period, the New York Times reported. 

Even Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Meta, who has previously criticized Trump, said he would not endorse a candidate this cycle.

He even conceded that seeing Trump rise to his feet, fist raised and bleeding from the ear following the attempt on his life earlier this month, was “one of the most bad*** things” he had ever seen.

Delegates

California delegates have also been working overtime to get behind Harris. The state is sending a 496-person delegation, the largest in the country, to the Democratic National Convention next month in Chicago. 

Within hours of Biden endorsing Harris on Sunday, California’s Democratic leaders began working to lock all of the state’s delegates down for Harris. 

State Democratic Party Chairman Rusty Hicks sent a form to delegates, asking them to endorse Harris.

“Now it is time for Democrats to unite around our common calling — defeating Donald Trump, retaking the House of Representatives and preserving our democracy,” Hicks said. “I am asking delegates from our great state of California and home to our Vice President, Kamala Harris, to officially endorse her nomination for President of the United States at the convention in Chicago.”