Washington: In the nearly three months since President Joe Biden slammed the stage for his election campaign in Atlanta and stifled his strategy, his closest sessions have been with his White House chief of staff, his best communications planner, or even the campaign’s lead.
Rather, he is relying on members of his family — a tight-knit community that includes his brother, Hunter, and the first woman, Jill Biden— along with a small group of loyalists to navigate him through a self-created crisis and suppress a rising rebellion against his candidacy from within his own party.
Biden relies on Mike Donilon, a lifelong friend, past poll, and Biden plan messaging guru, to compile the numbers, with ordinary memos and many normal telephone calls, rather than speaking directly with the pollsters on his 500-person campaign team about the state of the race against Donald Trump.
The principal link between worried lawmakers and the leader is Steve Ricchetti’s frequently buzzing phone, who has been a close advisor to Biden since his vice presidency.
Biden speaks often to his brother, Hunter, who calls and texts the president and first lady several times a day to see how they are coping with the invasion of investigation surrounding his father’s health, cognitive health and last political campaign.
The president’s campaign’s campaign has been plagued by recent interviews with more than three dozen people, some of whom spoke under the condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations with him. They claim that those who are guiding Biden through the biggest political crisis of his presidency are true believers in Joe Biden’s mythology and reject any claims that are contrary.
The end result is a historic conflict between Biden and his small inner circle on the one hand and broad swaths of voters and elected Democrats afraid of a November electoral reversal on the other.
It’s a battle Biden has seemed to embrace in recent days. When questioned on Monday night about who he consults on issues like staying in the race or leaving, the president responded in a jovial manner,” Me.”
In an interview with NBC’s Lester Holt, he said,” Look, I’ve been doing this a long time,” adding,” My mental acuity’s been pretty damn good.”
Biden has expressed frustration to allies that people do not seem to accept that he is mentally cogent and fit to lead, according to a person familiar with his thinking. And he thinks that his polls ought to reflect what he considers to be his accomplishments.
Some of the public’s pressure on Biden to leave the race has been muted by the attempted assassination of Trump on Saturday. But the party remains deeply divided. Four people who were given the details claim that the Democratic National Committee is using the moment to quickly confirm him as its party’s presidential nominee by the end of July, while many other Democrats are indignant about Biden’s chances.
Rep. Adam Schiff, a Republican in the Senate, warned during a private meeting with donors on Saturday that if Biden were to win the election, according to two people with inside knowledge of his remarks.
Recent polls show Biden trailing in most or all of the battleground states.
According to a person with access to a transcription of a recording of the event,” I think if he is our nominee, I think we lose,” Schiff said at a fundraiser in New York. And we could very, very well lose the Senate and our opportunity to retake control of the House.
Although Biden is taking advice mostly from his closest circle, he has been trying to prove that he is up for reelection by holding a series of meetings with lawmakers intended to hear concerns about his candidacy. In Biden’s vacation home in Rehoboth, Delaware, on Saturday, he held private conversations with Democratic governors and lawmakers, including with majority leader Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York. However, several participants claimed that the encounters were expertly staged and did n’t help them with their concerns.
On Friday, Biden abruptly left a call with Hispanic members of the House after one lawmaker, Rep. Mike Levin, D-Calif., called on him to get out of the race. According to one interviewer who is aware of the call, Biden’s staff chose the questions. A White House spokesman, Andrew Bates, called that claim “false.”
On Saturday, as Biden prepared to meet with centrist members of the House, several participants said the Biden campaign tried to solicit questions beforehand, which Bates also denied.
They wo n’t want to hear my question, which is,” Are you cloistered?” Have you heard that there are seven or ten swing states instead of just three? said Rep. Mike Quigley, D-Ill., who has called for Biden to step aside. The numbers are trending toward more swing states, worse numbers, and more contested congressional seats. It’s heading in the opposite direction.
During the call, Biden brushed away Rep. Chrissy Houlahan, D-Pa., when she told him he was trailing in her state by 4 to 5 percentage points, according to two people who participated in the call.
Biden appeared to read from a note left to him by a staff member on Saturday during an earlier call with progressive members of the House:” Stay positive, you are sounding defensive.” A lawmaker on the call claimed that the president was not accidentally reading the directive but was making fun of his aides. But the lawmaker said it spoke to how stage-managed the calls have seemed.
Other lawmakers say they are still perplexed that Biden has not reached out to House members and Senate members, including a trip to Capitol Hill, where Biden spent 36 years and maintains a deep respect for.
Rep. Ritchie Torres, D-NY, called the Biden outreach” too scripted and too superficial,” and claimed that the “hard conversations” were not taking place. And now, after the shooting at Trump’s rally Saturday night, he thought they might never occur.
In an interview, Torres, who has not called on Biden to step down, said,” I suspect the attempted assassination of Donald Trump will likely crowd out the serious reckoning that should occur around the Democratic nomination.”
Biden relies the most on the assistance of his small group of advisers, including Bruce Reed, who frequently writes speeches and advises the president on policy, as he has for the majority of his career. Reed and Anita Dunn, the president’s senior communications adviser, have crafted the 100-days agenda Biden debuted at a rally Friday.
On quick dial are also Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., and Ron Klain, Biden’s former chief of staff. Biden is choosing their attorney rather than soliciting a wide range of viewpoints from a party that is still firmly divided over his continued candidacy. And they all are betting that, at age 81, he will pull off the biggest upset of his political career.
People hoping for Biden to step down from office only find that his performance at a nearly hour-long news conference on Thursday makes matters worse. He also gave a strong performance on Friday at a rally in Michigan, where a chanting crowd booed and criticized his media coverage.
And he does have supporters who are encouraged by what they see.
Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif, said that” President Biden met the moment by calling for this country to come together and reject any political violence.”” What is needed is a bold agenda for 2024,” including increasing Social Security, ending medical debt, and increasing rent caps, said Rep. He finally succeeded by making an offer in Detroit.
White House aides disputed the claim that Biden has closed himself off to outside voices.
President Biden is incredibly proud of the well-rounded team he has created, working with him to defend middle-class families, our freedoms, and the rule of law, according to Bates, a White House spokesman. ” The president frequently meets with a wide range of administration officials, from governors, mayors, to members of Congress,” the president said. These include policy experts, team members who interact with all kinds of communities, as well as policy experts.
Bates added,” He has not made changes to the group of advisers he consults, who he trusts because they’ve demonstrated the integrity to tell the truth and keep the well-being of the American people front of mind”.
Democrats have expressed concern about who is advising the president in such a high-stakes situation. Huntingdon Biden, a native of Los Angeles, recently spent time preparing his father for a speech at a White House meeting and giving him formally advice on other political issues. If he cannot reach either the president or first lady, he calls on Anthony Bernal, Jill Biden’s senior adviser, who is in most senior-level meetings involving the president — an unusual status for an East Wing aide.
Bernal, who has supported the Bidens since the 2008 presidential campaign, is regarded as a force in the White House. The close-knit Biden family values loyalty, and Bernal proves it with his walk in front of a speeding train for her, according to a close friend of Jill Biden.
Bernal works closely with Annie Tomasini, the White House deputy chief of staff, who is almost always at the president’s side. She wants to help the team win, according to a senior White House official who described her value to the Bidens and the administration.
The small group’s loyalty to Biden and his family is a significant part of their value, in large part, because they value them highly. It was a sentiment that came through to some Democratic senators who attended a briefing with Ricchetti, Donilon and Jen O’Malley Dillon, Biden’s campaign chair, this past week, according to two people familiar with the meeting.
People with knowledge of the dynamic claim that there is a larger group of senior aides who meet each day to discuss the hours that are to be planned. Since the debate, there have been two meetings each day, one at 9 a.m. and the other at 9 p.m.
That group includes Jeff Zients, the White House chief of staff, who meets with the president multiple times a day on topics ranging from foreign policy to natural disasters. Zients, who has been Schumer’s primary contact, has participated in numerous recent meetings to increase support, including one between Democratic governors and Biden. He has participated in discussions with Democratic donors and business leaders, and Dillon, who regularly speaks with Biden, has had private conversations and participated in meetings with other parties, including donors, lawmakers, and party officials.
Ben LaBolt, the White House communications director, also attends the larger meetings. Dunn, who oversees the White House’s communications strategy and has prepared Biden for his most recent interviews, does the same.
Biden’s letter to congressional Democrats, which was written by Dunn and Donilon, relays his decision to remain in the race. Sending the letter was Donilon’s idea, according to a person familiar with the process.
Donilon and Dunn were with Biden reading along as he delivered an Oval Office address on Sunday evening.
Members of the Biden family and allies have accused Dunn and others of putting Biden in danger of losing the debate and of restricting his public appearances, a charge that her supporters in the White House claim is unjustifiable. Biden has told members of his debate preparation team, which was led by Klain and a cast of other aides including Reed and Donilon, that he is not upset with them, two people familiar with those discussions said.
Hunter Biden, who was just found guilty of felony gun charges, has also expressed dissatisfaction with Dunn and her husband, Bob Bauer, Biden’s personal attorney, for trying to distance himself from the president’s legal issues. The president’s son contested reports of tensions.
” I have nothing but gratitude for Bob and Anita who have tirelessly supported my entire family personally and professionally for years, and continue to do so today and going forward”, Hunter Biden said in a statement.
Despite the debate, people who are familiar with the dynamic claim that the tension between Dunn and some in Biden’s inner circle has increased, and Dunn has expressed her frustrations to allies.
When the president appeared to have opened the door to a data-based argument that he could not win, saying he would leave the race if his advisers told him” there’s no way you can win,” some Biden aides were relieved Thursday evening.
But Biden swiftly shot down that possibility, adding,” No one is saying that. That is not found in any poll. His denial sparked questions among some aides regarding the information the president has been shown.
To be sure, Biden has access to external polling. According to those with knowledge of his media diet, he has long been a regular reader of publications that publish high-quality surveys, including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post. He has a strong grasp on front-page stories. He also uses Apple News on his iPhone and is a regular watcher of cable television, particularly MSNBC. He works out in the mornings while watching his favorite show,” Morning Joe.”
However, he has repeatedly and openly questioned the accuracy of polling data, asking George Stephanopoulos and him at his press conference whether polling was” as accurate as it used to be” as he once was.
The Biden campaign had not conducted an extensive survey since the debate until Monday of last week, when it began fielding a poll in seven swing states, according to three people familiar with the campaign operations.
Biden insists that polls are a factor in almost all of his public appearances, claiming that surveys show he has won. Since the debate, nearly every national poll has Donald Trump leading or effectively tied the race.
” Recent polls show us winning”, he said at a rally in Michigan on Friday evening, pointing to a Marist poll, a rare example of a recent survey showing Biden slightly ahead of Trump, though within the margin of error.
