Rumours are swirling within the Biden camp that the president’s swift endorsement of Kamala Harris is an attempt to get revenge on the party’s top leaders, including Barack Obama, who pressured Biden to drop out of the race against his wishes, sources told The Washington Post.
Joe Biden said in a speech on Wednesday he was stepping down to “protect our democracy”, but a source close to the Biden family claimed he had been instructed by President Obama to allow delegates at next month’s Democratic National Convention in Chicago to choose a new nominee.
“Joe said, ‘If I ever leave, I’ll support her,'” the source said.
Insiders were rumored to have seen this as a last-ditch effort by Biden to assert some control over his own ouster.
A senior Democratic source told The Washington Post he had heard similar stories, saying President Obama, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and New York Sen. Chuck Schumer had wanted to hold a “mini-primary” but that President Obama didn’t think Harris could win.
Multiple sources told The Washington Post that President Obama wanted Arizona Senator and former astronaut Mark Kelly to be his “front-runner” at the convention.
Biden withdrew from the 2024 presidential campaign in a statement posted to X on Sunday, and shortly after endorsed Vice President Harris as the Democratic nominee on social media.
Biden’s endorsement of Harris “is tantamount to Joe betraying Obama and Pelosi, who forced him to resign,” a Democratic source told The Post.
Another longtime Washington insider said Biden plans to play an active role in Harris’ campaign.
“This will be good for her as it will allow Biden to maintain his influence as someone with more experience in national politics,” a Washington insider said, “and it means her campaign won’t be run by a narrow-minded group of advisers.”
A senior Democratic source said there had long been “simmering tension” between Obama and Biden that began in 2015 when Obama tried to persuade Biden not to run for president in 2016.
President Obama and former first lady Michelle Obama formally endorsed Harris on Friday. NBC previously reported The former president waited because he didn’t want to overshadow Biden’s televised address to the nation on Wednesday.
Biden, 81, faced harsh criticism after his disastrous debate with Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump last month.
The 90-minute debate descended into chaos, with Biden looking confused, flustered and, at one point, frozen.
A source close to the Biden family said leading Democrats had threatened to invoke the 25th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and ask the vice president and his Cabinet to remove Biden from office.
Sources say the family belief was that President Obama wanted to remove Biden from the election, and that George Clooney’s New York Times op-ed calling on Biden to resign was part of that plan.
Calls to the offices of Obama and Biden and the Democratic National Committee were not returned.
Obama’s decision to persuade Biden not to run for president in 2016, giving Hillary Clinton the opportunity to take the presidency, has been a focal point of conflict between the two men ever since. Reports say.
“He wasn’t encouraging,” Biden later told The New York Times about Obama.
As for the upcoming campaign, sources close to the Biden family claimed President Obama has little confidence in Harris.
“President Obama knows she’s incompetent. She’s saying all immigrants should have health insurance even though she’s never been to the border. She can’t avoid the landmines that are before her,” the source said.
