Pelosi's power...
Playbook: The walls close in around BidenFor weeks, the Democratic Party has been paralyzed by uncertainty about whether President JOE BIDEN should stay atop the ticket or step aside. But over the last 24 hours, that uncertainty has given way to a growing clarity about the reality facing the president: The walls are closing in, and his position leading the Democratic ticket appears increasingly unsustainable.
The president’s reelection bid has now lost the confidence of Congress’ senior-most Democratic leaders, as well of party elders around the country.
Yesterday alone …
- ABC News’ Jon Karl scooped on World News Tonight that Senate Majority Leader CHUCK SCHUMER and House Minority Leader HAKEEM JEFFRIES told Biden in person that he should end his reelection campaign for the good of the country.
- CNN’s MJ Lee, Jamie Gangel and Jeff Zeleny reported that former Speaker NANCY PELOSI told the president that he can’t win and is dragging down the party, jeopardizing potential majorities in Congress. (More on this below)
- Rep. ADAM SCHIFF (D-Calif.), Pelosi’s longtime protégé, became the latest Hill Democrat to publicly call on Biden to step aside, arguing that he has “serious concerns about whether the President can defeat DONALD TRUMP,” and that it’s “time for him to pass the torch.”
- Biden’s confidant and campaign adviser JEFFREY KATZENBERG confronted the president about new financial woes, telling him that big donors — skeptical that he can win — have all but stopped writing checks, Semafor’s Liz Hoffman and Ben Smith scooped.
- Senior Democrats started privately circulating jarring numbers from Blue Rose Research, which found that “just 18 percent of voters and only 36 percent of people who voted for Mr. Biden in 2020 believe he is mentally fit and up to the job of being president,” according to the NYT. Other super PAC polling shows “Biden’s deficit growing to 5 percentage points or more in the must-win states of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin.”
- And DNC officials were pressured by their own party into pushing back a virtual roll call nominating Biden after an attempt to move it up was seen as a way of assuring Biden could run out the clock on the Dump Biden crowd.
This flurry of stories yesterday is no accident. Senior Democrats had hoped to address this matter privately — Pelosi herself certainly advised members to try to do so, at least for a time.
But Biden and his inner circle have refused to listen. So now, Democrats are leaking tidbits of private conversations with the president himself, using the news media as a microphone to send a message: We’re no longer with you — and we will force you off the ticket, if needed.
“The speaker does not want to call on him to resign [as the Democratic nominee], but she will do everything in her power to make sure it happens,” one Pelosi ally we spoke with said.
The developments underscore a new, more public phase of the Dump Biden movement. It’s also an astonishing turn of events that puts Biden’s presidential bid on life support: With Democratic leaders like Pelosi, Schumer and Jeffries against him, how can he possibly continue?
There is, in effect, no mistaking what party leaders are thinking now.
Schumer could have denied the exchange. He did not.
Jeffries could have corrected it. He did not.
And all week, as news about Pelosi working behind the scenes against Biden trickled out, the former speaker could have taken to TV to firmly defend her longtime ally and friend. She did not.
There are signs that maybe — just maybe — Biden is starting to get the picture.
- CNN’s Jeff Zeleny reported that Biden is more “receptive” to stepping aside than before, asking advisors if VP KAMALA HARRIS could win the general election.
- The NYT also reported that Biden has grown “more receptive” to talk of stepping aside.
- And with Biden now diagnosed with Covid and forced from public events for a few days, it’s quite possible that he’ll take the time to pause, reflect on the feedback he’s getting and decide whether to change course.
The flurry of leaks comes as Pelosi herself has coordinated with senior Democrats to try to push Biden out, cranking up the pressure on the president bit by bit in hopes that he’ll get the picture. (We’ve covered Pelosi for a long time now and can tell you her fingerprints are all over the knife.)
Over the past couple weeks, Pelosi has been in contact with former President BARACK OBAMA as well as Jeffries and Schumer, though her office denies this. In addition to speaking to Biden himself, we hear she’s been in frequent communication with Biden adviser STEVE RICCHETTI, conveying her growing alarm.
Meanwhile, Pelosi’s allies on the Hill — including California Democratic Reps. Schiff, MIKE LEVIN and JARED HUFFMAN — have coordinated with other members, organizing letters and advancing the conversation when needed.
“There’s nothing subtle about Nancy,” another Pelosi ally told Playbook. “She starts with the question: ‘What’s it take to win?’ Then works backwards.”
And each time the Dump Biden movement seemed to stall, it was Pelosi who personally took pains to help revive it. First, with her alarming comments on “Morning Joe” after Biden appeared to temporarily quell the uprising. Then, with her ally Schiff, who rekindled the movement yesterday after it had gone quiet following the attempted assassination of Trump.
While Pelosi’s office insists Schiff’s statement caught her by surprise and she didn’t have a heads up, everyone we’ve spoken to who knows her says that’s baloney — and we believe them.
We’ve covered Pelosi for years and know how she operates. She and Schiff — both national security-minded members who served on Intel — are wired the same way and so close that other House Democrats refer to them as the “California mafia.” They rarely take a step without consulting each other — let alone one as significant as calling on the president to end his campaign. (During Trump’s first impeachment, for instance, Schiff called Pelosi to get her blessing before making his now-famous “we’ve crossed the Rubicon” line on the Sunday shows that pitched the caucus into an effort to oust Trump.)
We’ll also note that Pelosi has denied having knowledge of a whole host of matters that she personally had a hand in shaping over the years — whether the time she carefully orchestrated then-Rep. JACK MURTHA’s (D-Pa.) surprising and high-profile decision to oppose the Iraq War (as Molly Ball wrote in her book, “Pelosi”) which triggered an anti-war movement in the party, or the time that freshmen Dems with national security backgrounds wrote a letter calling for Trump’s impeachment, providing critical momentum to that effort (as Rachael reported in her book, “Unchecked”).
Pelosi, we’re told, sees it as her mission right now to help guide the party through this turbulent time — though she has sought to do it discreetly.
There’s a reason her members often quip: “Don’t bet against Nancy Pelosi” and call her “the shark that never sleeps.” Democrats now see her as their last hope to get Biden out of the race — and she just might be able to do it.
https://www.politico.com/newsletters/pl ... n-00169335