A list of allies and former advisers to former President Barack Obama led a campaign calling for Biden to withdraw from the 2024 presidential race before he formally ends his campaign on Sunday afternoon.
Biden formally withdrew from the 2024 presidential race last month after a disastrous debate defeat against former President Trump and weeks of growing pressure from traditional Democratic allies to drop out, following growing concerns about his mental competency and his age, 81.
“My fellow Democrats, I have decided not to accept the nomination and to focus my efforts on the duties of my presidency for the remainder of my term,” Biden wrote on X after dropping out of the race on Sunday afternoon.
“My first decision as the 2020 party’s nominee was to select Kamala Harris as my vice president, and it was the best decision I ever made. Today I fully endorse and support Kamala to be our party’s nominee this year. Fellow Democrats, it’s time to unite and defeat Trump. Let’s do it together,” he said in another social media post.
Obama’s allies and former advisers move to block Biden’s reelection
President Biden and former President Obama (Reuters/Kevin Lamarque TPX Today Image)
Among the most notable voices calling for Biden to step down were Obama allies, including some of his former advisers. David Axelrod, “I think Biden is going to win this election,” he said this month. Biden served as vice president under President Barack Obama from 2009 to 2017.
“There are some immutable facts in life,” Axelrod said of Biden’s age and leadership in an interview with CNN. “And that was painfully clear on the debate stage: The president just … doesn’t get it. He’s not going to win this election.”
Axelrod, a former Obama campaign strategist, said Biden was used to the struggle of “bouncing back from political defeat and adversity.”
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“So he has the mentality that he can win against anybody, no matter how difficult the situation,” he said this month. “The only thing he can’t win is the gods of time.”
“And that’s really the concern. It’s not about his record,” Axelrod continued.
Following Axelrod, Hollywood star George Clooney published a bombshell op-ed calling on Biden to drop out of the race just weeks after co-hosting a lavish campaign event for Biden with Obama in Los Angeles. Clooney has long been a personal friend of Obama and former first lady Michelle Obama, and has vacationed with the president and first lady in the past.
From left: former Obama adviser Jon Favreau, President Biden, and actor George Clooney. (Getty Images)
“It saddens me to say this, but the Joe Biden I was with at a fundraiser three weeks ago was not the ‘big’ Joe Biden of 2010.” Clooney writes: “He wasn’t even the Joe Biden of 2020,” he said in a New York Times op-ed. “He was the same person we all witnessed at the debates.”
Jon Favreau, a close aide to Obama and his former speechwriting director, also called on Biden to drop out of the race this month, saying he attended a fundraiser in Los Angeles with Clooney and Obama and found Biden to be in a very unstable mental state.
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President Obama holds President Biden’s wrist at a fundraiser. (Christopher Gardner via Storyful/File)
“It wasn’t a surprise to any of us who were at the fundraiser. I was there. Clooney was right, and everyone I spoke to at the fundraiser was thinking the same thing, except for the people who work for Joe Biden. At least they didn’t say that,” Jon Favreau said during an appearance on CNN this month.
“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.'”
Favreau, along with former Obama advisers Jon Lovett and Tommy Vieter (collectively known as the “Obama Brothers” when they worked in the White House), spent much of this month’s episode of their podcast “Pod Save America” disparagingly about Biden.
George Clooney and his wife Amal Clooney (Dave Bennett/Getty Images)
“It was awful and very painful to watch at times,” Vieter said, referring to an interview Biden gave with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos after his debate performance.
“It seems like the clear choice that somebody else would have a better chance,” Vieter said, while Lovett added that Biden “is not getting his message across effectively.”
Former President Obama and President Biden (Getty Images)
By Sunday afternoon, Biden and his campaign remained adamant that the president was not dropping out of the race.
President Obama has remained relatively silent while Biden has been considering his options for the election, and while he defended Biden after his recent debate performance, he did not respond to media reports that he was working behind the scenes to encourage Biden to withdraw.
Obama remains silent on reports he’s working ‘behind the scenes’ to knock Biden out of 2024 presidential election
“Sometimes you have bad debate nights, believe me, I know. But this election is a choice between someone who has spent their whole life fighting for the common man and someone who only thinks about themselves. It’s a choice between someone who will tell the truth, know right from wrong and be honest with the American people, and someone who will lie for their own gain. Last night’s debate didn’t change that. And that’s why so much is at stake in November,” he posted on X at the time.
As reports spread that President Obama was working “behind the scenes” to throw Biden out of the race, the 44th President remained silent rather than denying the reports. Politico reported that Clooney had informed President Obama “in advance” of a planned op-ed calling for Biden to drop out of the race, and that Obama did not object to the op-ed.
Former President Obama (Spencer Pratt/Getty Images)
President Obama issued a statement Sunday praising Biden’s work in the Oval Office but did not say who should succeed him now that he is not seeking reelection. Biden, the Clintons and other leading Democrats voiced their support for Vice President Harris shortly after Biden’s endorsement.
“We will be navigating uncharted waters ahead, but I have every confidence that our party leadership can create a process that will produce excellent candidates. I believe Joe Biden’s vision of a generous, prosperous and united America with opportunity for all will be on full display at the Democratic National Convention in August, and I hope each of us is ready to carry that message of hope and progress in November and beyond,” Obama said in a lengthy statement Sunday.
“Joe Biden has been one of America’s greatest presidents and a dear friend and partner to me. Today we were also reminded that he is a patriot of the highest order,” Obama added.
Amid growing speculation that Biden would withdraw, the Associated Press reported that President Obama, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi had been lobbying behind the scenes for Biden to withdraw over concerns that he could not beat President Trump.
Notably, Pelosi suggested earlier this month that while Biden had previously been adamant that he would remain in the race, that wasn’t a final decision.
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“It’s up to the president to decide whether he’s going to run,” she said on MSNBC earlier this month. “Time is running out, and we’re all urging him to make a decision.”
Obama has accompanied Biden to several campaign events since last year, but according to a 2019 New York Times report, long before he accompanied Biden to campaign events or endorsed his former vice presidential candidate, Obama had warned Biden not to run for the White House, saying campaigning would “tarnish his record.”
“Joe, you don’t have to do that, you really don’t have to do that,” President Obama reportedly told President Biden in 2019.
Then-President Obama smiles alongside then-Vice President Biden before signing the Affordable Care Act during a ceremony in the East Room of the White House on March 23, 2010. (SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images)
“Win or lose, they needed to ensure that Biden did not ’embarrass’ or ‘tarnish his legacy’ on the campaign trail,” The New York Times reported, citing two people with knowledge of the conversations.
Before becoming Obama’s running mate in 2008, Biden made a series of gaffes, including while he was preparing to announce his own presidential candidacy in 2007. On the eve of announcing his candidacy, Biden told reporters that Obama was “the first mainstream African-American man who was bright, intelligent, clean, good-looking.”
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Obama has been cautious about who he will support in the 2020 election, saying he would not endorse anyone in the primary. After Democratic candidates Pete Buttigieg, Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Sen. Bernie Sanders dropped out of the primary race, paving the way for Biden, Obama endorsed the former vice president in August 2020.
Joe Biden and his son Hunter (AP Photo/Andrew Harnick)
As Democrats consider who to formally nominate for the 2024 presidential election, some of the president’s closest advisers are placing the blame for a loss in the 2024 presidential election on donors and “the elected official.”
“Now that donors & voters have pushed out the only candidate who beat Trump, it’s time to end the political fantasy games and unite behind our outstanding @vp @KamalaHarris, the only veteran of national campaigns!! Let’s be realistic and win in November!” former White House chief of staff Ron Klain posted on X.
Following Biden’s announcement, Republicans called for the president to resign, arguing he cannot serve as president for the remainder of his term if he cannot run for another term.
“If Joe Biden is unfit to run for president, he is unfit to serve. He must resign immediately. The sooner November 5th comes, the sooner we can,” House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-Louisiana, said in a statement Sunday.
Former President Trump attended the Republican National Convention at Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee on July 17, 2024. (David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
“If Democrats have determined that Joe Biden is unfit to run for reelection, they have clearly determined that he is unfit to control nuclear weapons codes,” House Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-Minn.) added. “Biden must resign immediately.”
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Trump’s running mate, Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance, also called for Biden to resign just hours before he formally announced his withdrawal.
“Once Joe Biden ends his reelection campaign, how can we justify remaining in office? Not running for reelection would be a clear admission that President Trump was correct all along that Biden is not mentally qualified to be Commander in Chief. There is no middle ground,” Vance tweeted Sunday morning.
Fox News Digital’s Brandon Gillespie and Liz Elkind contributed to this report.
