President Biden had spent a miserable weekend at his home in Rehoboth Beach, in his home state of Delaware, 100 miles from the White House, self-isolating with Covid, coughing and clearing his throat as the world passed by.
Even Vice President Kamala Harris was in the running to replace him as the Democratic nominee in the November presidential election.
He headed to Delaware on Friday after cutting short his campaign in Las Vegas, where he had tested positive, but was firmly informed by his people that he was still running for re-election and even claimed he would resume campaigning later this week.
But on Sunday lunchtime he decided the game was up and announced that, although he would remain president until the end of his term in January, he would no longer seek re-election. Shortly afterward he said he was backing Harris for the Democratic nomination.
He couldn’t do anything else. He had chosen Harris as his vice president to show that, although he was old and sick, he had chosen a younger woman who was fit to be president if he died in office. So how could he not support her now?
Vice President Kamala Harris was in the running to replace Joe Biden as the Democratic nominee in the November presidential election.
Donald Trump never wanted Biden to step aside. He always considered him the easiest to beat, writes Andrew Neil
Biden had remained hunkered down over the weekend, invisible to the public, with only a handful of aides he still trusts and his selfish wife, Jill, furious at Harris’s disloyalty, still unwilling to step aside to make way for a younger candidate despite overwhelming evidence that he was in no condition to fight a grueling election campaign, let alone serve another four years in the Oval Office.
His wife was one of the last to admit that Joe should step down. She enjoyed being first lady. His disgraced son, Hunter, who faces jail time, had his own reasons for wanting to keep his father in office. He had recently become part of Joe’s inner circle and had even flown from California to Las Vegas to bolster his father’s case.
Biden’s mood at his beach house, which Hunter called regularly over the weekend, ranged from defiant to sullen, bitter to resentful, as old friends and allies abandoned him — sometimes publicly, more often behind closed doors where they were orchestrating his impeachment.
Nearly 40 Democratic lawmakers in the House and Senate had already signed on to the “Dump Biden” movement. He knew dozens more agreed, though they had yet to show their cards.
The president was particularly angry with Barack Obama, whose vice president he served for eight years. Obama had not said anything publicly, but no one in Washington DC had any doubt that he had joined the “Get rid of Biden” campaign.
A handwritten sign appeared on a Washington lawn in support of Kamala
Particularly galling to Biden is that his former boss and Democratic icon was in cahoots with Nancy Pelosi, the former House speaker and one of the president’s oldest and closest confidants.
Biden, though not his wife or son, began to realize that with the Democratic aristocracy like Obama and Pelosi against him, as well as the powerful on Capitol Hill, his days were numbered. On Sunday morning, two more ominous developments occurred.
West Virginia’s independent senator, Joe Manchin, who recently became a Democrat and enjoys great respect across party lines, went on one of the many Sunday morning talk shows in the United States to say it was time for Biden to step down. Even for an isolated Biden, surrounded only by true believers, it was clear that the dam was about to burst.
Then came a new poll from the crucial Midwestern swing state of Michigan, showing Donald Trump leading by seven points (49 percent to 42 percent).
The Detroit Free Press reported that “Trump led in every region of the state, including metro Detroit (a Democratic stronghold).” Biden won Michigan by three points in 2020. The end of Biden’s presidency was near.
Biden’s withdrawal ends one dispute that divides Democrats, but it could open another, perhaps equally divisive one: Should Harris, Biden’s constitutionally apparent heir, inherit the Democratic nomination unopposed?
Or should there be an open convention when the Democratic National Committee meets in Chicago next month, a political beauty pageant involving several contenders, of which Harris would be just one?
Harris has been a mediocre, often embarrassing vice president who rambles on inane word salads, laughs obnoxiously at the most inappropriate moments and has no accomplishments to speak of, writes Andrew Neil.
President Biden had spent a miserable weekend at his home in Rehoboth Beach, in his home state of Delaware, 100 miles from the White House, self-isolating due to Covid.
Biden’s endorsement of his vice president is aimed at avoiding a bloodbath in the Windy City. He hopes it will deter presidential hopefuls like Govs. Gavin Newsom (California), Josh Shapiro (Pennsylvania) and Gretchen Whitmer (Michigan) from throwing their hats into the Democratic ring, turning Chicago into a coronation for Harris rather than a contest.
Even before Biden dropped out, Harris’s team was already spreading the message that the crown is rightfully hers, without competition. That it would be unconscionable for Democrats — Democrats! — to pass over a Black woman who is already vice president in favor of a white man (or even a white woman).
As one prominent black Democratic activist indelicately but forcefully put it: “How the fuck are they going to put all these white people ahead of Kamala?”
For a party where identity politics has become the dominant political ideology, this argument will resonate. Leading black and Hispanic Democrats on Capitol Hill are already making it. The party’s left-wing cultural warriors are echoing it.
American news networks, which lean overwhelmingly Democratic, were awash all weekend with Harris supporters even before Biden dropped out, many of them new to the cause, praising her supposed virtues and describing the slander that would befall those who thought otherwise.
This is likely to give other contenders some serious food for thought. Why risk the wrath of hard-core party activists when Trump seems hard to beat anyway? The Clintons (Bill and Hillary) were also quick to endorse Harris. Her nomination seems unstoppable, at least as things currently stand.
But this comes at a price. It means that the Democratic obsession with identity has trumped all other considerations — that the party’s nomination should now go to someone based on gender and race, rather than on merit and ability. But it was on the basis of gender and race that Biden chose Harris as his running mate in the first place.
Harris’ team insists that his wife, a generational change to break the gerontocracy that has dominated American politics for too long, will give Trump a run for his money that Biden has failed to achieve.
Maybe. But Harris has been a mediocre, often embarrassing vice president who rambles on in meaningless word salads, laughs obnoxiously at the most inappropriate moments and has no accomplishments to speak of.
Just a few months ago, Biden’s people complained that she was a liability to the ticket and considered firing her (they concluded they couldn’t do that). So what they’re saying about her now should be taken with a grain of salt.
The risk is that, in her own way, she will be as much of a liability as Biden when the campaign really begins in early September. Yes, her polls show her doing better than Biden when compared to Trump, but not by much, and all credible Democratic alternatives to Biden are doing better than him in the polls. Some are doing better than Harris. And that’s before Republicans unleash their propaganda arsenal against Harris.
Over the weekend, the Republican Party gave us a preview of what’s to come: a devastating television ad dominated by “Cackling Kamala” and focused on her failure to do anything about one of the biggest problems of the election: the chaos at the U.S.-Mexico border, where 10 million illegal immigrants have crossed in recent years — a problem Biden has tasked her with solving.
Asked on television why he had not even visited the border at the time, he replied: “I have not been to Europe either.”
Trump never wanted Biden to step aside. He has always considered him the easiest to beat. He even called out the Republican war dogs when they were planning to remove him. He feared a new face from a younger generation would emerge. Except for one: Harris. He thinks she will be even easier to beat than Biden.
Democrats are happy with Biden’s departure, but not as much as Donald Trump.