News: Biden’s lesson in political first aid

Sunday, July 7, 2024

Biden’s lesson in political first aid

Jul 07, 2024

By Eugene Daniels, Rachael Bade and Ryan Lizza

Presented by

With help from Eli Okun, Garrett Ross and Bethany Irvine

DRIVING THE DAY

MUST READ — “Secret Meetings, Private Threats and a Massive Arms Race: How the World is Preparing for Trump,” by Paul McLeary, Christoph Schiltz, Stefanie Bolzen, Jacopo Barigazzi and Philipp Fritz:

“More than six months before the next American president takes office, there is already an extraordinarily advanced effort across the NATO alliance, and far beyond, to manage a potential transfer of power in America. With President JOE BIDEN listing badly in his bid for reelection, many allies anticipate that at this time next year they will be dealing with a new [DONALD] TRUMP administration — one defined by skepticism toward Europe, a strident strain of right-wing isolationism and a hard resolve to put confronting China above other global priorities.

“In the run-up to this week’s NATO summit in Washington, POLITICO and the German newspaper Welt embarked together on a reporting project to assess how the world is preparing for Trump’s possible return to the White House; reporters for both publications interviewed more than 50 diplomats, lawmakers, experts and political strategists in NATO nations and elsewhere. Many of those people were granted anonymity to speak about sensitive matters of diplomacy and international security. What emerged from this reporting was a picture of a world already bending to Trump’s will and scrambling to inoculate itself against the disruptions and crises that he might instigate.”

President Joe Biden gestures during a visit of the DC Emergency Operations Center.

President Joe Biden is still trying to squash concerns over his ability to lead the ticket. | Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images

BIDEN’S POLITICAL FIRST AID ATTEMPT — Today, a lesson in political first aid: When you have a wound, you want to (1) stanch the bleeding by applying pressure, (2) clean the wound and (3) protect it from further damage.

The problem for Biden is that he’s done none of that since his catastrophic appearance in last week’s debate. The bleeding hasn’t stopped (and is likely to get worse in the coming days), the wound is getting worse and it hasn’t been cleaned — which, in this case, would mean transparently and candidly allaying concerns about his mental acuity and health.

He’s still in the “apply pressure” phase after more than a week. But what do you do when you don’t have much pressure to exert? You create it.

Biden will attempt to do that with a doubleheader of events today in Pennsylvania. First, he’ll speak at a Black church in northwest Philly, then head to a “community organizing event” with union members in Harrisburg. The campaign boasts that major Keystone State Dems will be with him throughout the day, including Gov. JOSH SHAPIRO, Sens. BOB CASEY and JOHN FETTERMAN and Philly Mayor CHERELLE PARKER. (Not abnormal, of course, but a show of force at this time is more significant and goes much further than it used to.) For obvious reasons, Biden is eager to appear defiant and feisty, and the chance to push back against his critics is an opportunity for him to show that he still has plenty of fight left.

The idea here is to suggest that the clamor for Biden to exit the race is coming from elite opinion-makers and Washington apparatchiks, while everyday Democrats — including in must-win swing states — are still with Biden. (We can tell you from our conversations in recent days that White House aides often point out how wide they believe that disconnect truly is.)

Biden world’s hope is that in emphasizing the gulf, they can create a groundswell of pressure on elected Democrats to keep them behind the president. (Indeed, anyone who’s been on X over the past few days can attest to the fact that a number of #Resistance types have swallowed the notion that national media has concocted the Biden-must-go story.)

But there are a few problems with that.

— Problem 1: It’s not just the party elite who are concerned. So are a lot of rank-and-file Dems.

NYT’s Katie Glueck, Nicholas Nehamas and Lisa Lerer interviewed more than 50 Democrats over the last week as we have the makings of “an extraordinary clash between a defiant president of the United States who insists he is not abandoning his re-election campaign and members of his party who are beginning to suggest that he should.”

Among them, apparently, is at least one of his own aides.

Far and away the most important part of their story is that the trio quoted an anonymous “senior White House official” who has worked for Biden “during his presidency, vice presidency and 2020 campaign” and doesn’t think he should seek reelection.

“After watching Mr. Biden in private, in public and while traveling with him, the official said they no longer believed the president had what it took to campaign in a vigorous way and defeat DONALD J. TRUMP. The official, who insisted on anonymity in order to continue serving, said Mr. Biden had steadily showed more signs of his age in recent months, including speaking more slowly, haltingly and quietly, as well as appearing more fatigued in private.”

(Look for speculation to mount in the coming days over that anonymous aide’s identity. There aren’t that many people around who were at Biden’s side as VP, during the campaign and in the White House.)

— Problem 2: They’re concerned because of what they’re hearing from voters, not despite it.

“At this rate, Biden is likely headed for a landslide defeat to a lawless and unpopular former president,” DAVID AXELROD wrote in an op-ed for CNN yesterday. “Only ‘the Lord Almighty’ could persuade him to give up the race, the president said, as a growing chorus of Democrats, fearful of an electoral disaster, call for him to step aside.

“Denial. Delusion. Defiance. …

“Sometimes the Lord Almighty comes in the form of enlightened self-awareness. The stakes are as great as Biden describes. And if he believes it, as I think he does, he will eventually do what duty and love of country requires, and step aside. If he does not, it will be Biden’s age, and not Trump’s moral and ethical void, that will dominate the rest of this most important campaign and sully the president’s historic legacy.”

— Problem 3: It misidentifies the group Biden world cares most about.

WaPo’s Micheal Scherer, Tyler Pager and Josh Dawsey have a deep dive this morning on the Biden team’s “failure over the past nine days to contain a crisis that is tarnishing his legacy and threatens his presidency.”

For some people, the horse has left the barn. Nothing Biden does over the next week (including at the NATO summit) will change their minds.

But that’s not the audience Biden world feels like it needs to play to. A cadre of frontline Democrats and background quotes from party members don’t matter all that much to them — at least not yet.

Who does matter? At this point, keeping party leaders Biden knows and respects — like Senate Majority Leader CHUCK SCHUMER, House Minority Leader HAKEEM JEFFRIES, and Reps. JIM CLYBURN (D-S.C.) and NANCY PELOSI (D-Calif.) — from calling for him to step aside is most important.

As our colleagues Myah Ward and Jared Mitovich write, Biden is depending on them to continue to support him even as Congress gets back to town tomorrow. (Reminder: Jeffries is hosting a call with his committee leaders later today to discuss the current Biden situation.)

Questions abound about where those leaders stand.

Neither Schumer nor Jeffries responded to requests for comment from POLITICO (or apparently anyone else) after Biden’s interview.

Pelosi’s team, they write, “also initially said it had no comment. Less than an hour later, soon after the Biden campaign was contacted for comment, spokesperson IAN KRAGER offered a statement: ‘Speaker Pelosi has full confidence in President Biden and looks forward to attending his inauguration on January 20, 2025.’”

Clyburn, for his part, was scheduled to appear this morning on CBS’ “Face the Nation,” but canceled, kicking off a round of speculation online about why that was — though Clyburn reiterated his support on X and joined a biweekly meeting with campaign co-chairs and Biden yesterday.

Tomorrow, Congress returns, and as we discussed yesterday, there’s a very real possibility that once members get together in person, it’ll be easier to move en masse and push more seriously for Biden to exit the race.

In first-aid terms, that means that the bleeding is likely about to get worse, and as it does, the wound will only get more and more vulnerable.

Related read: “Biden’s base has been the Senate. It’s gone eerily quiet,” by WaPo’s Paul Kane

Set for Friday: “Biden to campaign in Michigan as he vows to stay in presidential race,” by The Detroit News’ Craig Mauger

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Good Sunday morning. Thanks for reading Playbook. Drop us a line: Rachael Bade, Eugene Daniels, Ryan Lizza.

SUNDAY BEST …

— Rep. ADAM SCHIFF (D-Calif.) on whether Biden is the strongest candidate to take on Trump, on NBC’s “Meet the Press”: “Ultimately, this is a decision President Biden is going to have to make and President Biden alone. … Given Joe Biden's incredible record, given Donald Trump's terrible record, he should be mopping the floor with Donald Trump. Joe Biden's running against a criminal. It should not be even close. And there's only one reason it is close, and that's the President's age.”

On the ABC interview: “The interview didn't put concerns to rest. No single interview was going to do that.” And on Biden’s answer to what if he loses: “That is the answer that most concerned me as well. This is not just about whether he gave it the best college try, but rather whether he made the right decision to run or to pass the torch.”

On whether Biden should take a cognitive test: “I’d be happy if both the president and Donald Trump took a cognitive test.”

— Sen. CHRIS MURPHY (D-Conn.) on Biden’s standing in the party, on CNN’s “State of the Union”: “Voters do have questions. Personally, I love Joe Biden, but I don’t know that the interview Friday night did enough to answer those questions, so I think this week is going to be absolutely critical. The president needs to do more.”

— Rep. BYRON DONALDS (R-Fla.) on whether Harris taking over the ticket would change the GOP strategy, on “Fox News Sunday”: “So if she’s now at the top of the ticket, our game plan remains the same. It talks about the disastrous agenda from the Biden-Harris administration and how Donald Trump will make America great again.”

— TIM RYAN on Biden’s poor debate performance on “Fox News Sunday”: “I think we saw that, with the president the other night, like, you can’t deny it. And it’s not just the polls. … And I think, you know, it’s important to be loyal, but part of being loyal is being honest. And I think we have to be honest to each other of just how difficult of a situation this is.”

TOP-EDS: A roundup of the week’s must-read opinion pieces.

“I’ve Defended Biden for Years. Now, I’m Asking Him to Withdraw,” by Bill Scher for Washington Monthly
“Savior Complex,” by Fintan O’Toole for the New York Review
“The New Republican Platform Must Not Abandon Conservatism,” by Tim Chapman for National Review
“My Unsettling Interview With Steve Bannon,” by David Brooks for NYT
“The debate was bad. The spin was worse,” by Hillary Frey for Slate
“Madame litigator,” by Robin Givhan for WaPo
“The Strange Future After a Second Trump Term,” by Daniel Drezner for POLITICO Mag
“The Supreme Court Sneaked an Attack on the Abortion Pill Into Its Final Ruling,” by Lisa Heinzerling for Slate
“NATO Has to Change. Here’s How,” by Farah Stockman for NYT
“It’s Time to Get Used to the Idea of President Kamala Harris,” by David Rothkopf for The Daily Beast

A message from The National Association of REALTORS^®:

WHAT'S HAPPENING TODAY

At the White House

Biden and first lady JILL BIDEN will return to the White House in the evening. But he pulled out of an address to the National Education Association originally scheduled for today so as not to cross a union picket line, Bianca Quilantan reported.

On the trail

Biden traveled from Wilmington, Delaware, to Philadelphia for a campaign event this morning, and next will head to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, for a campaign event with the first lady.

POLITICO AND WELT EVENT TUESDAY 7/9: Join POLITICO and WELT for a roundtable discussion on July 9 with the top defense officials in NATO countries that share a border with Russia, including Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. These are the crucial officials tasked with armoring these front-line states against Vladimir Putin’s aggressive expansionism. We will discuss how they are adapting to this new period of danger and explore the future of the NATO alliance and their relationship with the United States. Register here.

PLAYBOOK READS

9 THINGS FOR YOUR RADAR

Donald Trump

Donald Trump is close to naming a running mate ahead of the Republican National Convention. | Justin Sullivan/Getty

1. VEEPSTAKES: After weeks of teasing out the announcement timing, Trump is aiming to name his running mate by July 15, which is the first day of the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, WaPo’s Marianne LeVine and Josh Dawsey report. He appears to have narrowed the list down to chiefly two names: Sens. J.D. VANCE (R-Ohio) and MARCO RUBIO (R-Fla.). But, but, but: “North Dakota Gov. DOUG BURGUM is also in the mix, and Trump, who has a habit of changing his mind, was privately discussing other names as recently as the last week, according to the people with knowledge of the situation.”

While the process plays out, the Trump campaign has a whole outfit dedicated to propping up the contenders. “An internal booking team is explicitly tasked with making sure contenders are booked for cable news interviews and quoted in conservative media outlets. The campaign team has also helped contenders organize pro-Trump fund-raisers and provided them call lists with specific donors to ask for contributions for the Trump campaign, which could also help them in the future,” NYT’s Michael Bender writes.

“But the contenders also bring benefits for Mr. Trump.” While nearly all of the leading contenders have expressed some form of criticism of the former president over the years, “by shedding their reservations about him and participating in the vice-presidential selection process, they have made Mr. Trump more appealing to more traditional Republican voters and donors while also demonstrating his total dominance of the party.”

2. HAPPENING TODAY: Voters in France are hitting the polls today as French President EMMANUEL MACRON’s centrist party braces for a thrashing at the hands of the far-right wing in the country. Our colleagues Marion Solletty, Victor Goury-Laffont and Clea Caulcutt outline what to watch for in Paris: “After his snap election gamble spectacularly backfired, the French president faces, at best, a hung parliament with no workable majority where his camp will be relegated to third place behind MARINE LE PEN’S National Rally and a left-wing alliance of Socialists, greens and radical leftists. All eyes will be on the far-right vote.”

3. DOCU-DRAMA: Judge AILEEN CANNON yesterday granted the Trump team’s request for “further briefing on the issue of presidential immunity in the Mar-a-Lago classified documents case,” NBC’s Lisa Rubin and Megan Lebowitz reports. “Cannon’s order marks the latest fallout from the Supreme Court’s presidential immunity decision on Monday, which ruled that Trump has immunity from prosecution for some conduct as president in the federal election interference case.

“In the order, Cannon afforded special counsel JACK SMITH the right, but not the obligation, to file a submission on the use of classified information at trial. At the same time, she paused two upcoming deadlines for Trump and his co-defendants.” Cannon also “denied a motion to dismiss the charges against the former president's co-defendant and longtime aide, Walt Nauta,” ABC’s Katherine Faulders and Peter Charalambous write.

4. WHAT ABOUT BOB: Just before the indictment and subsequent trial against Sen. BOB MENENDEZ came down, lawyer ABBE LOWELL met with prosecutors in a last-ditch (and eventually failed) effort to squash the charges, NYT’s Benjamin Weiser reports. “The government has made it clear that Mr. Lowell, who represented Mr. Menendez only during the investigation and not afterward, engaged in no wrongdoing. But the episode, an untold chapter in the story of the Menendez investigation that was recently disclosed in documents and testimony filed in the senator’s case, illuminates the normally confidential presentations lawyers make as they seek to persuade prosecutors not to charge a client, particularly one as high-profile as the senator.”

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5. ABORTION ON THE BALLOT: In Florida, as abortion-rights advocates push for passage of a ballot initiative to protect the procedure in the state, longtime Republican AUDREY McNIFF has been on the front lines trying to convince her network to support the effort. The situation offers an interesting window into how the issue is playing out on both sides of the party, Gabby Deutch writes for POLITICO Magazine in Palm Beach.

“For Amendment 4 to pass, it will need to garner 60 percent of the vote, rather than a simple majority. This means that the organizers seeking to shore up votes for the initiative cannot do so without winning over a significant number of conservatives and Republican voters like McNiff. That makes the retired banker a window into not just how Amendment 4 might pass in Florida, but also into how widespread is the support for abortion rights in both parties — and how that might not actually end up helping Democrats in elections.”

6. HOT ON YOUR FYP: “Trump Dominates TikTok. This Pro-Biden Influencer Explains Why,” by Rachel Janfaza for POLITICO Magazine: “Now an independent creator, [OLIVIA] JULIANNA — who posts selfies with the likes of Vice President Kamala Harris and has over 670,000 TikTok followers, far more than the Biden campaign — is leveraging her audience to convince young voters to stick with Biden. I spoke with her about how Trump became a TikTok ‘lifestyle girly,’ why the left is struggling to keep up with the right on TikTok and how Biden’s damaging debate is playing online.”

7. ONE TO WATCH: “The Shade Room built a massive Black audience. Candidates want in,” by WaPo’s Janay Kingsberry: “As a platform that largely depends on secondhand sources, TSR has often faced accusations of spreading misinformation. Still, as Black Americans increasingly turn to social media for political engagement, TSR remains a target for elected officials, including BARACK OBAMA, Biden and Harris, who have stepped ‘into The Shade Room’ to address issues affecting the Black community, such as childbirth mortality rates among Black women, tax cuts for the middle class and criminal justice restructuring. Amid another consequential election year, [ANGIE] NWANDU, who serves as CEO, is eager to harness TSR’s influence and to grow it into a larger multimedia entity.”

8. DANCE OF THE SUPERPOWERS: “China’s Support for Russia’s War in Ukraine Puts Beijing on NATO’s Threat List,” by WSJ’s Daniel Michaels: “When NATO leaders meet in Washington on Tuesday their agenda will be dominated by Ukraine, Russia and European military spending. But looming over their summit is a country far from alliance territory that NATO didn’t even mention until five years ago: China. Beijing today figures increasingly large in the plans of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s 32 members and their close allies in the Asia-Pacific region. … NATO, in its summit communiqué, plans to criticize China for supporting Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, alliance diplomats said.”

9. NOTHING BUT NET: The telecom industry has “unleashed a barrage of lawsuits designed to block a major policy goal of the Biden administration, a new internet-fairness regime it hopes to lock down ahead of the November election,” John Hendel reports. “The conflict is likely to drag on through the rest of 2024, showcasing the kind of behind-the-scenes Washington fight that can flare in an election year as a White House tries to cement its legacy. The suits, filed in the closing days of May in federal courts across the country, opened a new front in the battle over ‘net neutrality,’ a policy the Federal Communications Commission voted to adopt in April.”

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PLAYBOOKERS

TRANSITION — Jaelin O’Halloran is joining the Biden campaign as press secretary for Arizona. She previously was comms director for Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.).

FIRST IN PLAYBOOK — Rykia Dorsey Craig has joined the Biden campaign as Deputy Chief of Staff and Press Secretary for First Lady Jill Biden. Most recently, she served as Special Assistant to the President and Acting Press Secretary in the Office of the First Lady.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY: Reps. Judy Chu (D-Calif.) and Matt Rosendale (R-Mont.) … DNC’s Matt Hill … Marti Adams Baker … Bloomberg’s Nia-Malika Henderson … Eleanor Clift … Patrick Dillon … Rachel Rosen … Rachael Leman of Leman Kennedy … Amanda Maddox … Terry Camp … Ed Kaleta of 3M … Matt Gobush of Afghanistan War Commission … Stuart Varney of Fox Business Network … Luther Lowe … Truman Reed of Rep. Monica De La Cruz’s (R-Texas) office … Michael Stevens of the Capitol Riverfront BID … Mike Rigas … Andy Manatos … Ana Kasparian … former House Majority Leader Dick Armey … CNN’s Sophie Tatum … Lx Fangonilo of Deep Root Analytics … Patricia Bryan … Miranda Dabney … Geoff Garin … Neil Newhouse … Michael Hudome … Lawrence Gottlieb … America Votes’ Sara Schreiber … Amanda Crumley

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