Joe Biden’s team believes Barack Obama is secretly orchestrating efforts to remove him from the 2024 election, according to one of the president’s confidants.
While Obama has offered public support to his former vice president, alumni of his administration have been among the loudest voices warning of electoral failure, with his friend George Clooney making his criticism public on Wednesday.
A day later, Biden ally Joe Scarborough went on a tear on his TV show, Morning Joe, exposing the simmering tensions within the Democratic Party.
“The Biden campaign and many Democratic officials believe that Barack Obama is quietly working behind the scenes to orchestrate this, and if Joe Biden believes that, that’s not going to get him out of the race any faster,” he said.
Scarborough went on to describe years of resentment and how Biden felt ignored by Obama in 2016 when the then-president chose Hillary Clinton to be his successor.
On Thursday, Joe Scarborough (center) used his show “Morning Joe” to attack Barack Obama, saying Biden’s team believed he was orchestrating calls for him to step aside.
He and Biden reportedly speak frequently. And the president chose Monday’s Scarborough show for his counterattack, calling in to rant against the “elites” who are lining up against him.
On Wednesday, Clooney, one of Hollywood’s most bankable stars and a good friend of Obama, wrote a column in the New York Times headlined: “I Love Joe Biden, But We Need a New Candidate.”
One day later Political He revealed that he had spoken to Obama before publication. The former president, sources said, did not warn him about the idea.
In fact, the two were together at the lavish fundraiser in Los Angeles, where Clooney said: “It’s devastating to say, but the Joe Biden I was with three weeks ago at the fundraiser was not the Joe ‘Big F***ing Deal’ Biden of 2010. He wasn’t even the Joe Biden of 2020. He was the same man we all saw at the debate.”
Clooney was a frequent visitor to the Obama White House and the former president even vacationed with him in Lake Como, Italy.
He joins a number of Obama movement figures calling for Biden to step aside. The most vocal has been David Axelrod, who masterminded both of Obama’s presidential campaigns, and this week warned Biden he was headed for a “crushing” defeat.
Scarborough responded by saying Biden would simply ignore warnings from people like Axelrod and the Obama alumni who run ‘Pod Save America,’ who have also demanded Biden step aside.
“David Axelrod says Joe Biden will fight back for another day,” he said.
“Every time the Pod Bros say something nasty about Joe Biden, which they have done repeatedly… they said nasty things about Joe Biden before the debate, after the debate…” he said.
Former President Barack Obama joined Biden at a glitzy fundraiser in Los Angeles last month. George Clooney was also there and wrote that the president was a shadow of his former self.
Clooney was a frequent visitor to the Obama White House and the two remain close. They are pictured leaving Clooney’s Lake Cuomo home for dinner.
“Every time they do, he digs in a little deeper. The path to Joe Biden stepping aside graciously doesn’t go through the Obamas or the Clintons.”
Biden’s feelings toward the Obamas and Clintons run deep, Scarborough continued.
“Joe Biden is deeply resentful of the treatment he received not only from Obama’s staff, but also the way he was sidelined in favor of Hillary Clinton,” he said.
“He’s deeply resentful of those who try to push him out of the way. He’s always felt like an outsider. He’s always felt like people looked down on him.”
Biden has always made much of his working-class roots and provided a folksy counterpoint to Obama’s Ivy League erudition when they were in office.
But there were frequent reports of slights by Obama’s staff, fueled by suggestions that Biden was eccentric and a holdover from an outdated political style.
Former Obama strategist David Axelrod has been one of the loudest voices warning Biden that he is in danger of losing the White House to Donald Trump.
Axelrod was the mastermind behind Barack Obama’s two electoral victories in 2008 and 2012
Democratic strategist Brad Bannon said it was inconceivable that someone like Axelrod would be operating without Obama’s authorization.
“It’s very clear from the Obama wing of the Democratic Party that they have serious concerns about Joe Biden staying in the race,” he said.
‘David Axelrod speaks for Obama because he doesn’t want to go public.’
This is not the first time that the Obama team has expressed concern about Biden’s campaign. Axelrod and others have publicly expressed concern about the candidate’s failure to create the infrastructure necessary to win in 2024.
But they accelerated after Biden’s disastrous performance during his first debate with Donald Trump.
“There are certain immutable facts of life, and those were painfully obvious in that debate, and the president just doesn’t seem to have grasped that. He hasn’t been able to accept that. He’s not winning this race,” Axelrod told CNN over the weekend.
The Biden campaign did not respond to a request for comment.