Democratic big donors began to pull back on funding for the Biden campaign as doubts grew about the president’s viability, under the slogan “No funding until Joe’s gone.” The beleaguered Biden campaign has turned increasingly to First Sun’s Hunter, who was convicted amid the turmoil.
The Washington Post reported that sources described the father-son relationship as “Shakespearean,” and that the donors’ revolt and the president’s surprised aides circulated a video of their boss feebly making his way up the steps of Air Force One.
Donors looking to replace Biden with a new, more viable model have tried to fund new polls for alternative candidates and funneled money to officeholders who have called on Biden to step down. According to the media.
And within the White House, some advisers were trying to do damage control by strategizing to ensure policy wins for Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump in a second term, an official familiar with the matter told the Post.
“The polls are not good and it feels like the situation is getting worse every day,” the election adviser acknowledged.
Adding fuel to frustration over Biden’s mental state, one lawmaker told the outlet that he had recently noticed a change in the president after meeting with him multiple times over the past four years.
The lawmakers alleged that during their previous meetings, Biden spoke so quietly that he could barely be heard across the table on Air Force One.
A third lawmaker said the president had frequently lost his words in recent weeks and called lawmakers by the wrong names.
Still, according to Jeff Weaver, a former political strategist for Sen. Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign, “if he wants to be the nominee, there’s no practical way to stop him.”
Despite reports that the Biden clan had met to discuss withdrawing from the campaign, sources insisted to The Washington Post that the family was united behind their elderly patriarch and that Biden himself was not backing down.
“He still believes he can win,” a lawmaker who has interacted with the president recently told The Washington Post.
Biden, who has been recuperating at his Delaware beach house, is said to have resented pressure to remove him from office and believed former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was the driving force behind it, aides to the president said Friday night.
“We’ve got to keep going,” Biden insisted in a phone call with Al Sharpton shortly after the disastrous June 27 debate, the pastor recalled.
Sharpton explained that over time, the debate about whether Biden should continue in the campaign has become an issue in itself.
“It reduces potential enthusiasm. It confuses people who want him to run,” he said. “What if he resigns? If we hold an open convention, wouldn’t that be a disaster?”
Trump campaigns in key states were already considering ways to keep Biden in the race, believing that a weakening of Biden could help them win.
“If Democrats want to win in Georgia, they’d better put a potted plant at the top of their list of candidates,” said Cody Hall, a top adviser to Georgia Republican Gov. Brian Kemp.
Biden also reportedly spoke incoherently and incoherently during a tense Zoom call with Rep. Jason Crow (D-Colo.), a decorated military veteran.
Reports this week said the call ended shortly before the attempted assassination of Donald Trump in Pennsylvania, preventing the Democrats involved from immediately voicing their grievances.
According to The Washington Post, polls of House Democrats have shown Biden trailing well behind his 2020 opponents in key districts, while Senate polls have him trailing statewide Democrats by double digits in battleground states.
“If he objects, the question becomes: What is the process after that? Will it be a coronation of Kamala Harris, as many have argued, or will it be some kind of abbreviated process?” Weaver suggested.
James Carville, a Bill Clinton strategist and one of the earliest voices calling for Biden to step down, was also perplexed.
“What they’re asking is, ‘How do we win this?'” he said of the people he’s spoken to. “Nobody’s gotten over it, and we’re moving forward anyway.”
