After wall-to-wall Trump assassination attempt coverage, with the coda of the Republican convention visuals and speeches, Biden’s future, or lack thereof, is back in focus. Many prognosticators had assumed that the failed Trump kill shot would give Biden a respite. And since running out the clock favored Biden, he’d win up being able to hold his ground.
Despite the fact that, on paper, only Biden (or God) can dislodge Biden as the Democratic Party chosen, reality is more complicated. In US, with its grotesque TV ad spend, a candidate with no or not enough money is effectively not a candidate. The many reports, both public and private, of a big donor rebellion was and remains the one thing that can shift the seemingly immovable Biden. The actions of party leaders are merely reflections of that.
I said to Lambert some days ago, and should have put down a marker, that I did not see how Biden would survive the moneybags withholding contributions if they continued to do so en masse. There are simply too many at too many levels, from fundraisers to consultants to legislative staffers to other flexian operatives, who depend on Team Dem for their survival. It’s one thing to suffer a loss of the Presidency, another to suffer a wipeout that severely diminishes the viability of the party. Too many college tuitions depend on it remaining a credible political force.
And that’s before considering, as we have mentioned repeatedly, that spook whisperers like David Ignatius have been saying explicitly or signaling loudly for quite some time that Biden should step aside. Opposing the CIA is not a pro-survival move, on many levels.
Those who know party machinations will hopefully correct my assumptions as needed and add details, but an elephant in the room is that it seems vanishingly unlikely that a Democrat will win the Presidency in 2024. Lambert linked to the report in Puck of yet another Biden-confidence-building session with insiders doing precisely the reverse, with only the shameless Debbie Wasserman-Shultz claiming that Biden had performed well. Even though those in the party with operating brain cells or adequate survival instincts know that, even if they have to do their best to spin otherwise. Biden continues to come apart at the seams. No amount of porcine maquillage application will meaningfully improve Harris’ popularity. And as for the wannbes, there isn’t enough runway to build President-level support.
As most readers also likely know, the best of the dimming Democratic Party prospects is to try to and succeed in retaking the House. That would argue for diverting a lot of the money that goes to the top of the ticket to House races. That certainly can’t happen with Biden in the race and controlling the Presidential pot. Can he be persuaded to step down and turn his funds over in a way that allows some (a lot!) to be redirected to downballot contests? One can imagine that the party’s best 11th dimensional chess player, Nancy Pelosi, who is also personally very attached to Democratic standing in the house, is laser focused on this and related funding matters.
Let us first look at some of the sudden outbreak of lead stories on Biden being back on the ropes.
Notice this campaign to get Biden to quit looks to have picked up considerable steam before the announcement that Biden again has Covid and is cancelling campaign events over the next few days. The official count is that Biden now has his third case of Covid. A widely-reported study found that the odds of Long Covid at infection 3 were 38%. Perhaps Covid will be the agent of God that Biden was insisting had to remove him for him to stop his Presidential bid.
This struggle is very much in play, so I am not sure how much sense it makes to try to discern exactly where things are. The key is that the trajectory is increasingly against Biden and the Trump shooting (if not the Covid case) will allow him to rationalize exiting. Nevertheless, some accounts, first from the pink paper:
Democrats in Congress including Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries, the party’s top representative in the House, have privately expressed their concerns to Biden, it emerged on Wednesday.
Adam Schiff, another senior House Democrat who is close to former Speaker Nancy Pelosi, publicly called on the president to “pass the torch”, citing “serious concerns” about whether Biden could defeat Trump in November….
Separately, CNN reported that Pelosi told Biden it would be hard to win if he stayed in the race and that doing so could damage other Democrats’ prospects. Pelosi’s office did not respond to a request for comment.
But the US president has remained defiant. Referring to Biden’s conversations with Schumer and Jeffries, a White House spokesperson said: “The president told both leaders he is the nominee of the party, he plans to win and looks forward to working with both of them to pass his 100 days agenda to help working families.”
[Hakim] Jeffries (D-N.Y.) met with Biden on Thursday night at the White House, and [Chuck] Schumer (D-N.Y.) met with him on Saturday in Rehoboth Beach, Del. In the meetings, the congressional leaders discussed their members’ concerns that Biden could deprive them of majorities, giving Republicans a much easier path to push through legislation, according to four people briefed on the meetings who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the private talks.
In a separate one-on-one conversation, a person close to Biden told the president directly that he should end his candidacy, saying that was the only way to preserve his legacy and save the country from another Trump term, the person said. Biden responded that he adamantly disagreed with that opinion and that he is the best candidate to defeat Donald Trump
President Biden has become more receptive in the last several days to hearing arguments about why he should drop his re-election bid…
Mr. Biden has not given any indication that he is changing his mind about staying in the race, the Democrats said, but has been willing to listen to rundowns of new and worrying polling data and has asked questions about how Vice President Kamala Harris could win.
The accounts suggest that Mr. Biden, privately at least, is striking a more open-minded posture than he did last week when he lashed out at a number of House Democrats who pressed him to step aside.
One person close to the president said that it would be wrong to call him receptive to the idea of dropping out but that he “is willing to listen.” But this person emphasized there was no sign that Mr. Biden was changing course at this point.
So at a minimum, weakening poll results might dent Biden’s resolve.
Regardless, a big countervailing factor is that Team Dem may have lost a lot of its former big supporters across the entire ticket, and not just for Biden. In other words, bad outcomes may already be baked in and Democratic Party efforts to turn the tide may be too little, too late.
I have gotten quite a few private reports of companies run by one-time Team Dem loyalists who have moved all operations out of New York due to the Trump tax case. Antipathy for the party among the very rich increased with the hush money case. Since when is it illegal to give money or services to your own campaign? The failure of the judge to instruct the jury on campaign law or to let the Trump attorneys present a witness to contest repeated and unsubstantiated prosecution insinuations of campaign law abuses set up what many see as an indefensible verdict due to the judge putting his finger on the dial in a very big way.1
Similarly, I have received private reports of heavyweight Democratic Party supporters turning their backs not just on the Biden campaign, but potentially the entire ticket. The most systematic sightings come from IM Doc, who practices in a very wealthy, connected, and until recently deep blue pocket, and has billionaires, CEOs, and operatives among his patients. A sampling of recent reports, first from mid-June, as in before the debate:
I have now been told by two different what I would call scions of Hollywood business people (not talent ) both Jewish – that they and their families have pulled all financial support from Biden. They will both be sending big bucks to Trump – and will be voting for him. The talent is saying somewhat the same although not as vociferous. They will talk to me about it as a friend – but never in their wildest dreams would they say so out loud.
From the end of June, as in after the debate:
At a big party today – lots of politicos there that are in the know. Both Dem and GOP.
Official party polls are showing Trump has gained 2-5 points in 13 states since Thursday. No indication if they are swing states. Also learned that Trump is now in striking distance in VA and MINN. And WASH, ORE, NEW JERSEY, AND COLORADO Trump is really getting close. These are not public polls but party polls.
The Biden numbers in the Asian and Jewish communities are in free fall for Dems. The numbers in Latinos have collapsed and the Blacks are not doing well either. They are having no good ideas that work in any of these groups. “People are pissed”. “The Dem coalition we have depended on has split and is shrinking before our eyes in real time” “Inflation is a bitch” “Kamala is an albatross around the neck of the party” The cope is amazing.
These people are literally shitting their pants. The problems were already bad before the debate but now are in the toilet. A few of them seem to realize that the lies are finally catching up with them.
At the start of this week:
2 billionaires and 1 Hollywood person this AM – all 3 previous Biden supporters.
1 billionaire will be supporting Trump –
The other 2 have completely cut off all funding to Biden – and are now sitting on their hands. “What a disgrace – I do not think I will even bother to vote.”
Later in the week:
The number of these billionaires/hundreds of millionaires that are switching to Trump has been a big surprise to me. They talk to me about it literally ALL the time. Part of my job is being “mother confessor” – and I am also one of the few people in their lives they can trust – their lives are filled with vipers. They are almost universally telling me how guilty they feel doing it – but they just cannot not do it. It is almost like they are asking me – a member of the normie class – for permission.
So even if Biden actually does get Long Covid, which given his ego looks to be the fastest track for him to turn over the reins to another contender, it’s not clear that Team Dem can rescue its Federal elections. “Orange Man bad” has lost its selling power with too many important audiences. Even worse, the revulsion that was supposed to focus on Trump him looking increasingly, at least among top donors, to be attaching to Biden.
____
1 Let us not forget that Judge Merchan’s daughter, a Democratic party operative, has been reported as fundraising off her father’s case. I have been told, but have not been able to independently confirm that there are 24 judges in New York’s lowest trial court, which is confusingly called the Supreme Court. Cases are supposed to be assigned at random. Yet all three Trump case in New York were assigned to Merchan. Pull out your calculator. The odds of that happening are 0.0072%. No typo. As in one in .000072.
One thing that I wonder is how much of this is about politicians trying to CYA in case Biden loses big. If Biden loses the popular and electoral vote significantly, the party officials and electeds get to say “it’s Biden’s fault, I told him that he was too old and needed to drop out.” And if there is a very small chance of him winning reelection, there isn’t any pushback as many in the party say the same thing and Biden will be gone in just over 6 months, including 2 as a lame duck.
> Biden will be gone in just over 6 months
“Vote for the corpse. It’s important!”
My calculator agrees that a 1-in-24 chance will come up three times in a row only .0072% of the time . . . but it says that that works out to one cumulative chance out of 24 x 24 x 24 = 13,824.
I suggested a week ago Biden was going to come down with an “unexpectedly severe, highly unusual and rare” reaction to a manufactured case of Covid. lol.
Short clip here of Biden getting out of his car and into Air Force One after testing positive for COVID.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/17/us/politics/biden-covid-positive.html
No mask on anyone. Does he really have it, or are they that feckless? Not a rhetorical question.
Feckless and Patches. The two presumed nominees.
I’m just imagining election night in November and by a miracle, the Democrats win under Biden. Cheers and shouts erupt among the Democrats – until the realization creeps in that they now have to prop up Biden for up to four years. Four very long years. And as he has shown no inclination to step down now, sure as hell he will not step down if he is reelected as President. And he will not give up the Ukraine no matter how many Democrat Neocons want to shift the attention to China. The Ukraine is the hill that he will die on – and take the Democrats with him. It might cause some Democrats to ask whether Thomas Matthew Crooks had a brother by any chance.
I’m in the blue to deep blue suburbs of NY. Heavy financial services executive presence (I-banking, PE, etc.). I heard two things…
About 6 weeks ago Biden spoke at a private fundraiser in Greenwich, CT, that I had some close friends at, and was hosted by Blumenthal. They walked out shaking their heads and saying the scuttlebutt then was he was a dead man walking and they weren’t giving more money. These are first hand accounts and pre the debate debacle.
Since then what I hear from them is that the word is going out quietly from Trump supporters on Wall Street is a message along the lines of “it really is in your best interests to get in line behind Trump or you might not like things when he wins.” At a minimum this is freezing them as given Trump’s history of retribution they don’t want the profile. Also, apparently Jamie Diamond getting in line in his way was a massive signal and perceived as shivving Biden.
I don’t have the link but apparently Bloomberg did a story on Trump’s proposed 2nd term agenda. It included the phrase Secretary of Treasury Dimon. From my seat of the pants perspective I think it’s entirely possible that the assassination attempt may cause the establishment to do penance by finally accepting Trump as one of their own (which he always was anyway). That may not apply to the Dem rats like Schiff trying to jump the already sunken ship. But history shows that the public mood can swing from center left to conservative. Biden and the Dems have gone to incredible propaganda (or, politely, PR) lengths to prevent that from happening but “events” seem to be in the saddle. The economy is poor for the lowers. Our foreign policy is a disaster. Corruption is rampant.
Going by Bloomberg a Trump 2 would be much the same agenda as Trump 1 but without Jared and Ivanka and, we only pray, without Pompeo and Bolton. The SC will become still more conservative and AGW will get little attention (which is true now anyway). But if nothing else it is healthy for the powerful who think they are “running the world” to find some limits.
I remain concerned that Hillary is the only viable candidate as a “plug-n-play” option. The short runway benefits her:
1. She’s a known quantity, already battle tested (or hardened)
2. The Clintons are known for their fundraising prowess. No money? No problem. Better call Bill!
3. Other candidates (Newsom, Whitmer) are less well-known and would need more runway to build campaigns.
Of course, all the negatives are still there with “She who cannot be denied”:
1. high negatives in the polls
2. she already lost to Trump
3. She’s old, and may have her own progressive medical condition
I wonder if the Bidens hate the Clintons so much that Joe is just running out the clock until late August. After that it will be next to impossible to do the old switcheroo. It’s Harris time!
Maybe before last weekend but doubt she’d want to take it on now. After all she was among the first to call Trump Hitler. Their fangs have been drawn.
I will say, if they were keeping her on ice and preparing to roll her out of deep storage, I would think that something would have leaked out by now. At least some sort of media tour would already be in place, you know, appearances on “The View”, maybe, or an interview with Lester Holt.
All I have heard are crickets.
The longer we go without such evidence of a secret plan, the less the odds. Still, I won’t believe she’s really dead until late August.
(I think we can look at a Hillary switcheroo as a kind of “put option” – gives the Dems the right to dump Joe but it has an expiration date of Aug. 19 or whenever the roll call of delegates happens.)
NOW would be good time for Russian President Vladimir Putin to endorse Biden for re-election as President.
(Revenge is best serviced cold or something something)
Too bad he did it already in February (bbc).
From IM Doc comments (I think)
The Biden numbers in the Asian and Jewish communities are in free fall for Dems. The numbers in Latinos have collapsed and the Blacks are not doing well either. They are having no good ideas that work in any of these groups. “People are pissed”.
And
The other 2 have completely cut off all funding to Biden – and are now sitting on their hands. “What a disgrace – I do not think I will even bother to vote.”
Me: Yes It really is a disgrace, that our (extremely old heavily senile long over baked) leaders have not yet fixed (disposed of Biden) this problem. Not having done so, is like spitting on all are faces.
I am amazed by that fact alone. The all need to be swept out of office. This is blatant a problem, it is something they should have corrected long long ago. That didn’t happen. They are beyond redemption.
For all the talk, mostly con, since it’s the MSM, about Vance, not once have I heard his age mentioned, which I find exciting. 39! A young, smart, successful Yale grad. Why is this not being emphasized? Biden is in big trouble with under 40s, this could swing more votes to Trump, although JD’s Zionism could negate that.
I am amazed that he was allowed to run in the first place. The minute he and his team started making noises about running again he should have been discouraged. And at the latest two years ago every major Democratic leader (yes including Barry and Bill and the Congressional leaders) should have had a sit down with Joe and Jill and said flatly you are NOT running. That there would be no more donations and the various Democratic operations (DNC, DCCC, DSCC, etc) would be backing credible primary candidates. You can either bow out with dignity or you can face multiple investigations and possible impeachment and your accurate medical records will be leaked to every major donor and if necessary every friendly media organization. As of today no Democrat in Congress will have Candidate Joe Biden’s back.
I don’t know if Kamala’s and Pete’s utterly unimpressive turns in office scared them from doing or it was the thought of rabid Joe and Jill Biden so they hesitated far too long. I don’t care how unimpressive the bench or what Joe had on people, they had as much on him. And they should have bitten the bullet and played chicken THEN.
Greenwald did a great piece all about Biden last week, pre ear shot.
https://youtu.be/zRZ7xVsbykE?si=SNVGsb-3TncnDhOe
Cliff notes are that, no, this is not a Good Man, this is a nasty, lying, driven man who finally achieved his goal of the Oval Office, and no way is he giving it up easily. After all, this is somebody who blatantly lied about his resume and life’s story in 1988 (!) in order to set up for a presidential run. Now he can’t remember enough to sort out his lies.
I still think he and the wife are negotiating a 8-9 figure buyout from the Big Donors.
Speaking of money, one wonders how much the Biden team has spent on “Trump is Hitler and must be stopped in any way possible” ads that they had to pull after the ear shot.
Schumer must be getting really good at talking to daft old people in power after going through this with Feinstein for all that time. He should write a book before he loses it.
The husband and I keep having this recurring argument about who is the scariest authoritarian, Putin or Biden.
Biden is still asserting against all evidence that only he can beat trump, that he is doing more to help the palestinians, that he ended the pandemic (which just infected him again!), that the economy and job growth are sustaining broad improvements. Etc.
I’m hard pressed to think of anything Putin is saying in public that is doing comparable damage to Russian public. I’m planning to start asking him for citations.
Forgot to add – the refusal to ask for the head of the SS resignation. Not even under discussion. It’s the authoritarian who values loyalty over performance. Sort of Biden’s brand if you think about it.
Just a thought, but you might throw a few health statistics at him. America’s falling life expectancy, addiction, maternal mortality, etc vs. Russian numbers even with an active war. Personally I find the authoritarian who is smart enough to want a healthy peasant population to be far less scary than the guy who wants them to get sick and die after spending everything they have on useless tests and drugs. But I suppose that one is subjective as well.
I sincerely apologize if this is a dumb question but I will genuinely appreciate an answer-
I understand why deep pocket donors are no longer giving to Biden.
What I don’t understand is why are they then giving to Trump?
Why don’t they just not give $ to either and let the chips fall where they may?
Is it merely as banal as needed tax deductions ?
Is it they are afraid the small donor hoi polloi will somehow bring about some craziness?
Both Biden and Trump seem to be happy to mostly protect the wealthy class so …?
I wonder if some part of it has to do with Gaza – even the weak and meaningless protestations that the Biden administration has occasionally made are a bridge too far for a good number of Americans.
The donor class likes thinking their phone calls will be answered. They think if they don’t donate to Trump, that isn’t likely to happen.
But rich people’s interests aren’t all the same. The real estate guys may not worry about the airlines. And the Big Pharma folk aren’t going to need the same things as the Oil folk. For instance Buffet could easily have contacted Biden when the railroad workers were striking and say ‘Hey, Joe. I know you want a win here, but we really cannot have the safety rules they want in the new contract. Can you ‘end the strike’ but make sure that none of that costly safety stuff happen? Thanks, I’ll pop a bunch of money into the reelection coffers…” But if you don’t have a history, you are at best talking to an aide, and if you gave a lot to the opposition you are talking to an intern. (I have no idea if it was Buffet who called, but someone did, to Joe and to everyone in Congress. Which is why we could have multiple train derailments after East Palestine and still not have the sensible safety requirements for them.)
It is the naked selling of access. Like most things it’s cheaper in bulk. The wealthy simply prefer to pay wholesale prices.
They don’t have to bother with who is in the office as long as they believe he’ll take their calls.
Not giving = no access. Sure, Trump isn’t likely to do anything to change their standard of living, but it’s all about what else you can get and without donations, you get nothing. And, as mentioned in the article, fear of retribution should Trump win.
I think he might really have been diagnosed with COVID recently and not wear a mask. Who’s going to make him? Masks are for the little people. And with regard to those around him – they believe that COVID is just about always mild and that wearing a mask is too much trouble, and not as comfortable as being facially naked especially in the summertime, and makes you look fearful and weak.
Heck, the last time I – an elderly immunocompromised person – was immunized, and also the last time I saw my primary care physician, both earlier this calendar year, I was the only person who was masked. I went to a funeral mass earlier this week – a couple of hundred people, of all ages but heavily skewed to the elderly – four or five were masked, and spouse and self were two of them.
History is one thing after another. Stuff will happen, and people will follow the Harvard Law of Behavior in responding to it. Peace will be with us all, sooner or later, one way or another
I can’t find the link, but weren’t gay bundlers putting pressure on Obama, one of the reasons his position “evolved”?
The Five Reasons Behind Obama’s Statement On Gay Marriage
I can’t find anything more explicit, so I don’t know if there was an actual donor strike, just a threat, or whatever.
There were distinct rumors that Obama was threatened with the cancellation of several major high profile west coast fundraisers unless he got off the fence. In many ways these were important because so many of the ‘guests’ had massive social media presence. And lots of the political class were only catching on to how this could and did translate to both donations and votes.
And I hate to give Biden credit for anything, but when this was going down he had already opened his big mouth and supported gay marriage at some event, making it seem that the sticking point was Obama himself.