Aides and former advisers to President Obama are plotting to block President Biden’s re-election.
The chain of events began when David Axelrod, an adviser to former President Obama, sounded the alarm after Biden’s dismal performance in last month’s debate, and was followed by other former advisers known as the “Obama Brothers” from their time in the White House, as well as actor George Clooney, who is close to the former president.
“Obama brother” Jon Favreau broke his silence on Biden’s mental state on Wednesday, just hours after Clooney published a damaging op-ed in The New York Times calling on the president to withdraw from the 2024 presidential race.
Obama remains silent on reports he’s working ‘behind the scenes’ to knock Biden out of 2024 presidential election
Former President Obama advisor Jon Favreau, President Biden, and actor George Clooney (Getty Images)
“It wasn’t a surprise to us at the fundraiser. I was there. Clooney was right, and everyone I spoke to at the fundraiser thought the same thing, except for the people who work for Joe Biden. At least they didn’t say that,” Jon Favreau said on CNN, referring to a fundraiser he attended in June in Los Angeles with Clooney and Obama.
“I remember after the fundraiser, my wife Emily asked me, ‘What are you going to do?’ and I said, ‘Well, the debate is in a week. Either he does well in the debate and people think he was just tired because he flew back from Europe and that’s the end of it. Or he’ll look like this at the debate and the whole country will be talking about it. So this is what we’re going to do.'”
Clooney writes: Democratic Party He said leaders need to stop trying to convince Americans that they “didn’t see what they just saw” and accused them of ignoring “warning signs” about Biden.
The actor argued that the Biden who showed up to the fundraiser “was not the ‘big’ Joe Biden of 2010. It wasn’t even the Joe Biden of 2020. It was the same guy we all saw at the debates.”
‘Obama Brothers’ back up Clooney’s damaging op-ed claims about Biden’s mental health
Former President Barack Obama (Spencer Pratt/Getty Images)
Favreau dedicated much of his time Tuesday to fellow “Obama brothers” Tommy Vietor and Jon Lovett. Latest ‘Pod Save America’ Episode They collectively attacked Biden following his poor performance in the first presidential debate and in subsequent interviews.
“It was awful and hard to watch at times,” Vieter said, referring to Biden’s interview last week with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos, which was part of the president’s efforts to quell critics who say he should drop out of the race.
“In fairness to Mr. Biden, I don’t think the interview resolved the political issues that arose from the debate,” he said, adding that the interview “further raised concerns” because Biden “struggled to speak clearly and coherently.”
Vieter argued that Biden has not articulated a compelling second-term policy package that could persuade swing voters to support him. Former President TrumpHe said travel and illness explanations for his recent poor performance did not adequately explain “how bad the debates have been.”
‘Obama brothers’ attack Biden as rumors of long-standing tensions linger: ‘It’s painful to watch’
Jon Favreau, Jon Lovett and Tommy Vieter attend PolitiCon at the Pasadena Convention Center on July 29, 2017 in Pasadena, California. (John Sciulli/Getty Images via Politicon)
Lovett agreed, saying the interview “was a difficult situation for him to pull off, even at his best. It’s hard to explain that it was over a week after the debate, that the interview was so brief and that he’d only been interviewed once.”
“It was a terrible night at the debate. We all saw it,” he said. “The explanation is kind of vague… It doesn’t do enough to allay our concerns about what we saw that night, right? So it doesn’t offer any explanation.”
“If you’re going to raise the stakes with one interview, then why not give us another example of someone who is hard for you to understand, not because he’s soft-spoken or because he’s mumbling, but because his train of thought doesn’t make sense,” he said. “The stakes are incredibly high. Trump is an incredible threat, but either he prosecutes the case or someone else prosecutes it, and at this point we’re not getting either.”
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Favreau said Biden’s interview was “more coherent than the debates” but that he was “concerned” that Biden lacked urgency and message that he may not be able to recover from in future debates. He cited recent polls showing Biden trailing Trump in every key battleground state.
“You’re getting that message to George Stephanopoulos, so what are you going to do to win over voters who are undecided between Biden and Trump?” he asked.
Vieter then said “it seems like the clear choice that somebody else would have a better chance,” while Lovett argued that Biden “is not getting on message effectively.”
“The George Stephanopoulos interview was painful to watch,” Lovett said. “It was a terrible interview. He couldn’t explain at all why he was running, what happened in the debate, why he’s the guy who can beat Trump. It was a terrible explanation.”
President Obama initially defended Biden immediately after the debate, but has since remained publicly silent about the growing criticism.
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