Democrats escalate against Biden but hand GOP ammunition

The campaign to nudge President Joe Biden out of the race for the White House has reached its next phase: named public statements about his infirmity.

While former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-CA) noncommittal Morning Joe comments about Biden’s political future were devastating in their own way, showing that his support among Democratic leaders is paper-thin, they cannot be effectively used in an anti-Biden ad down the road should he be the nominee come August.

THE PROMINENT DEMOCRATS CALLING ON BIDEN TO DROP OUT

George Clooney’s New York Times op-ed saying the Biden we saw at the first presidential debate is precisely what he witnessed at a recent fundraiser is full of bulletin board material for former President Donald Trump’s campaign and cannot be credibly walked back later. Members of former President Barack Obama’s old political team, including senior adviser David Axelrod and speechwriter Jon Favreau, called the portrayal “devastating” and basically accurate.

Anonymous quotes about Biden’s frailty have failed to get him to budge, so Democrats and their allies are beginning to put their names on such accounts.

It is a risky strategy. If Biden does not bow out of the race and emerges from Chicago as the official rather than just presumptive Democratic nominee, he will be even weaker in the general election. This was the outcome Democrats had hoped to avoid by foregoing a competitive primary process: softening up Biden for Trump and not ending up with a new and improved standard-bearer.

Even if these stories facilitate Biden’s exit, they raise questions about why no one said anything about them before the debate. Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA), the longest-serving member of her party in the Senate, criticized a Wall Street Journal story about Biden showing signs of his age behind closed doors, asking why she wasn’t quoted. But this week, she insisted “we need to see a much more forceful and energetic candidate on the campaign trail in the very near future in order for him to convince voters he is up to the job.”

“At this critical time for our country, President Biden must seriously consider the best way to preserve his incredible legacy and secure it for the future,” Murray continued.

NBC News’s Chuck Todd told a podcast that a senior Biden official expressed doubt in the president’s ability to run for reelection two years ago. New York magazine’s Olivia Nuzzi has written about a “conspiracy” to protect Biden from public exposure of the 81-year-old’s decline.

While media outlets may face scrutiny over the speed with which such claims were reported, Democrats who could replace Biden will also be asked what they knew about the president’s condition and when they knew it. Vice President Kamala Harris tops that list.

The fundraiser Clooney references is the one where Obama was seen gently escorting Biden off the stage. The viral video was denounced by the White House and its allies as a “cheap fake.”

Some Democrats were undoubtedly surprised by Biden’s appearance at the debate, although there is decades of television footage of the man that would suggest he is slowing down. But many had considerable exposure to Biden recently.

If Biden had refused to debate Trump, saying he would not share a platform with an insurrectionist and convicted felon, how many Democrats would be publicly questioning his fitness to serve now?

Nevertheless, new polling has Democrats in a panic. On Tuesday, there were reports the party was worried about New York becoming a 2024 battleground state. Even if those fears are exaggerated, leaked Democratic internal polls show Biden jeopardizing the party’s chance to take back Republican-held congressional districts in the Empire State he carried in 2020 but where he now purportedly trails by double digits.

Biden came out of the July 4 weekend the first presumptive Democratic nominee to trail in the national RealClearPolitics polling average in 24 years. This feat eluded even John Kerry, the last Democratic presidential contender to lose the popular vote. The Republican National Convention is next week, raising the possibility this deficit will get worse.

House Democrats are terrified Biden will cost them any chance of taking back the chamber in November. Sen. Michael Bennet (D-CO) publicly predicted Biden will lose, possibly in a landslide, echoing worries reportedly expressed by two of the most vulnerable Democratic Senate incumbents up for reelection this year.

Biden is set to deliver what officials have billed as a “big boy” solo press conference on Thursday that will only increase Democratic anxiety and presumably calls for him to drop out of the race if he falters.

The president may no longer even benefit from the expectations game now that Democrats and Republicans are questioning him. At the State of the Union address, they wanted to believe he was up to the job. Now they may need to be convinced.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) is reportedly being pressed to share these worries with the White House.

“I’m not going to answer that question,” Biden told ABC News last week when asked what he would do if Democratic leaders requested he step down. “It’s not going to happen.”

Democrats keep saying it’s the president’s decision and they hope he will make the correct one, even though Biden has repeatedly stated his intention to remain in the race.

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“I have complete confidence that Joe Biden will do the patriotic thing for the country,” Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA), the vice presidential nominee on the Democratic ticket that lost to Trump in 2016, told News Nation. “And he’s going to make that decision. He’s never disappointed me.”

If Biden does end up disappointing Democrats, they may be prepared to make stronger statements to change his mind. The latest Democratic offensive may leave no exit strategy other than his exit.