The rebellion against Joe Biden‘s presidential candidacy is growing and now Bill and Hillary Clinton are joining the behind-the-scenes plotting with Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi.
Well-connected aides for Obama and the Clintons are commissioning polls and lobbying Democratic donors to hold onto their dollars in an effort to pressure Biden out of the competition.
But the president’s allies are fighting back, joining their boss in digging in their heels about staying in the competition. Biden, his White House and his re-election team have said repeatedly he is in the race to stay.
The coup , however, is born out of concern that Biden, after his disastrous debate performance, can’t beat Donald Trump in November. But it has it roots in the decades-long simmering resentments between Obama, the Clintons and Biden.
They have long, interconnected ties among one another – they’ve shared staffers, passed legislation and campaigned for one another but they’re also longtime competitors who take turns getting annoyed at the attention and credit the other receives.
As Biden digs in his heels and the whispers against him grow, the interparty fighting shows no signs of stopping with plots and twists coming in at machiavellian levels.
It’s a question of how long it can continue before the whole thing implodes.
‘Something’s got to give, because we’re in hell right now,’ said Democratic strategist Jim Manley, a well-connected former staffer who knows all the players in this modern Shakespearean drama.
Joe Biden said the only way he would drop out of the presidential race is if his staff told him ‘there’s no way you can win’
Biden has made it clear he’s in the race to stay.
At his press conference on Thursday evening he said the only way he would drop out is if his staff told him ‘there’s no way you can win.’
The rebellion has focused on showing him just that, plotting to use poll numbers and money pressures to force him out.
Obama’s former campaign manager David Axelrod has long been skeptical of Biden’s chances of winning a second term.
The debate – where Biden fumbled for words and stared into the camera – was a breaking point for many who worried the president would never recover from the damage.
‘If what he said at the end of his presser is true, it sounds like Biden’s team has not been very candid with him about what the data is showing: the age issue is a huge and potentially insurmountable concern and his odds of victory are very, very slim,’ Axelrod wrote on X after Biden’s press conference.
The rebellion is a ‘growing’ network of ‘ruthless’ aides, Axios reported, calling it the ‘unofficial Committee to Unelect the President.’
The aides have worked for Obama and Bill and Hillary Clinton – using their combined experience and rolodexes to rally party members against Biden.
‘The Super Friends are assembling,’ a House Democrat told Politico.
‘There’s a group of people who are going to go make their case to whomever they can get to at the White House that he needs to step aside and we’re going to get our asses kicked if he doesn’t.’
Democrats are growing more and more terrified that not only Biden will cost them the White House, he will drag down his fellow candidates, handing Republicans control of the House and Senate too.
Additionally, some major Democratic donors have told Future Forward – the largest pro-Biden super PAC – that roughly $90 million in pledged donations are on hold as long as Biden remains on top of the presidential tickets, the New York Times reported.
Biden’s re-election team, however, argues there is a path to victory in what they are calling the blue wall: Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.
And, they argue, if they can make it through the past two weeks they can make it through anything.
‘If we can get through these two weeks that we’re living through, we can get through anything,’ Biden campaign chair Jen O’Malley Dillon told staffers on call Thursday per Axios.
‘What you are seeing in the public polling in the last couple days is what we are seeing in our polls. What we are seeing is that this is still a margin of error race,’ she said.
And former Obama aide Tommy Vietor called the reports of a coup ‘totally inaccurate’ and ‘a little crazy.’
‘Someone is pushing around a conspiracy theory that there’s a coordinated effort by former Obama staff to push out Biden. It is totally inaccurate (and a little crazy),’ he wrote on X.
Barack Obama is said to be one of the Democratic elders plotting to get Biden out of the race
Bill and Hillary Clinton aides are said to be joining the rebellion against Biden
But the chatter continues that the best decision for the Democratic Party is having someone other than Joe Biden at the top of the ticket.
With Biden stubbornly staying in the race – backed by family members Jill, Hunter and Valerie – the only way to get him out may the combined of pressure of the donors whose money keeps the party in play and an intervention by the party elders: Obama, Bill and Hillary Clinton, Pelosi and Chuck Schumer.
If Biden can be convinced his candidacy would destroy Democrats on Capitol Hill and hand Trump unlimited power, he may step aside.
But Hillary Clinton and Obama may not be the right messengers to make that point.
Biden, Obama and Clinton have long been competitive – they all ran against one another for the 2008 Democratic nomination that Obama eventually won.
Publicly they would all stand together, as Obama and both Clintons stood behind Biden after his debate debacle.
Privately it is a different story.
Biden is said to still harbor anger at the duo over the 2016 election. Obama talked him out of running that cycle, clearing the path for Clinton, who lost to Trump.
Meanwhile, Obama is said to be frustrated that Biden has passed legislation he could not – such as the infrastructure act – and Clinton is resentful that Biden beat Trump.
But all of them remain concerned about Biden’s low poll numbers. Trump has been in the led of the race for months and Biden’s debate performance didn’t help seal confidence in his candidacy.
The rebellion is ‘a little bit of score settling, but I think for a majority, they truly believe that Donald Trump poses an existential threat, and that’s something’s got to change,’ Manly said.
The best chance to talk Biden out of running could be Schumer and Pelosi. If they can convince Biden their lawmakers are worried that – with him leading the party they will lose re-election – it could cause the president to have second thoughts.
Nancy Pelosi, seen above with Barack Obama and Joe Biden at the White House in 2022, is one of the few people who could tell Biden to step down
Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, and Barack Obama in April 2007 when they were all running for the 2008 presidential nomination
Pelosi has been at the center of the story for a while.
She is the one that lawmakers have gone to with their worries about the president. And she has a strong relationship with Biden, strong enough she could deliver the death blow.
Plus she has the cojones to tell him to step down.
‘She’s the f***ing power-broker. She’s the hatchet,’ a Democratic lawmaker told Axios of the former speaker.
Already Pelosi has publicly urged Biden to rethink he stance about staying in the race.
‘It’s up to the president to decide if he is going to run. We’re all encouraging him to make that decision. Because time is running short,’ she said on Morning Joe on Wednesday.