President Joe Biden is currently isolating in Delaware with Covid, all while he watches his party try to knife his incumbent campaign in the back. According to NBC News’ sources, President Biden “feels personally hurt and betrayed by the way so many Democrats, including some of the party’s top leaders, have left him hung out to dry as he faces the biggest crisis of his political career.” I feel hurt and betrayed on his behalf, and I cannot believe what Biden’s supposed political allies are doing to him and have already done to him in the past month. It’s grotesque and it’s one of the most shameful moments in the history of the Democratic Party. In case you didn’t know, this whole f–king catastrophe started because the media needed ratings and drama, and because Democratic donors got spooked. All of this Dem Party panic and “senior Democrats” briefing against Biden constantly is about the donors throwing their weight around. CNBC reports that Hillary and Bill Clinton have been working behind the scenes to soothe donors:
Since then, big money donors who fund either the Biden campaign, his allied political action committees or the party at large have launched a lobbying campaign aimed at senior Democrats in both the House and Senate. Their goal is to convince lawmakers to publicly call on Biden to end his reelection campaign, according to over half a dozen people familiar with the matter.
Many of these donors laid their positions out in stark terms: If Biden refused to drop out, they would not be giving money to help his reelection until polls showed that he was a clear favorite to beat Trump.
Donors who have made these types of calls to Democrats on Capitol Hill include Hollywood executive Ari Emanuel, his brother Zeke Emanuel and Alan Jones, a senior managing director at Intermediate Capital Group and a longtime Democratic party donor, two people familiar with the matter explained.
The effort set off a scramble by some of Biden’s allies to keep donors on the president’s team. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, her husband former President Bill Clinton and Biden campaign co-chair and media mogul Jeff Katzenberg have all made pleas to donors, asking them to stick with Biden, according to people briefed on the matter.
Biden has repeatedly said he has no plans to drop out of the race, despite over 20 members of Congress publicly calling on him to “pass the torch,” with many more doing so in private.
In an unexpected twist, events that feature Vice President Kamala Harris, Biden’s likely successor should he step aside, have started to sell out. An online seating chart for a concert event with Harris in Pittsfield, Mass. on July 27 shows it is almost entirely sold out. Tickets start at $100 and go up to just over $12,000, according to the invitation. Folk legend James Taylor and cello star Yo-Yo Ma are the headliners.
As I said in a separate post, this is the moment – it actually should have happened before now – for the party elders, the ones with no more campaigns left to run, to step forward with their full-throated support of President Biden and Vice President Harris. I’m glad the Clintons are working behind the scenes to help President Biden and I’m disgusted that the Obamas are not. Part of me wonders if the original plan was to have a big come-to-Jesus moment at the Democratic National Convention, with those party elders all coming out for Biden and making it a big moment of party unity. If that was the plan (and I have no idea if it was), they need to update the schedule and make it happen ASAP. I’m not sure if we can wait until August 19th, when the DNC starts in Chicago. What if this bullsh-t is still raging through the Olympic fortnight?
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red.