Democrats Are So Mad at Biden They Have a Brutal New Nickname for Him

Democrats are becoming frustrated with the response from President Joe Biden and his administration after Thursday’s disastrous presidential debate, according to a new report from Axios.

Members of Congress think that Biden has been slow to reach out to party leaders, as well as lawmakers in tough election races. The report even states that some Democrats think Biden’s staff is trying to shield him from people arguing for him to withdraw from the election.

“I don’t know who’s making decisions,” said one House Democrat “Why the hell isn’t Biden on the phone with congressional leadership? ... Everybody now thinks he could cost us the majority.”

The report referred to a Tuesday afternoon meeting of the House Democratic Policy and Communications Committee, where over two dozen Democrats in Congress vented about Biden and his staff. During the Zoom call, one member of Congress called the situation “the elephant in the room,” leading other members to call Biden “the donkey in the room.”

One source on the call said that none of the members present called for Biden to stay in the race, a worrying sign. Other Democrats have voiced their concerns publicly, with Representative Marie Gluesenkamp Perez telling a Washington state TV station, “Biden is going to lose to Trump. I know that’s difficult, but I think the damage has been done by that debate.”

Representative Jared Golden, another Blue Dog Democrat, even wrote in an op-ed column, “While I don’t plan to vote for him, Donald Trump is going to win. And I’m OK with that.”

Inside the White House, Biden’s staff and aides are reportedly freaking out themselves. A leaked poll shows that Biden is in trouble in states that were previously thought safe. Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said that Biden’s mental condition was a “legitimate concern” on Tuesday, and one of the longest-serving Democrats in the House, Representative Lloyd Doggett, has even called for Biden to withdraw from the 2024 presidential race. How will Democrats find their way out of this crisis?

Kevin Roberts, president of the Heritage Foundation, seemed to issue a veiled threat to the American left during an appearance on far-right entertainment network Real America’s Voice on Tuesday.

“We are in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless—if the left allows it to be,” Roberts said, in front of a backdrop advertising the Heritage Foundation, the conservative think tank involved in Project 2025, a far-right draconian blueprint to streamline ultraconservative legislation that would significantly roll back civil rights, designed to be deployed the second Trump takes office. While Trump’s campaign has stated it’s not involved in Project 2025, the blueprint has been described as a legislative “wish list” for a Trump presidency.

Roberts’s assertion that the country is in the midst of “the second American Revolution” sparked concern among critics, who pointed to his statement as damning proof that Project 2025 is part of a wide-sweeping effort to convert American democracy into a fascist state.

What Roberts means by “bloodless” is unclear, but critics immediately interpreted it as a threat that any resistance to the authoritarian far-right power grab laid out by Project 2025 would be met with violence.

President Joe Biden’s performance at last week’s debate has induced a maelstrom among aides and officials in the White House and on his campaign, with several administration figures reportedly “freaking the fuck out,” according to Axios.

“It’s the first topic of every conversation,” one White House official told the publication. “Senior leadership has given us nothing. To act like it’s business as usual is delusional.”

The debate was a critical moment for not just Biden’s 2024 candidacy but also his current presidency. Over 90 minutes, what was intended to be a showcase of Donald Trump’s extremism in contrast to Biden devolved into a one-sided train wreck, with Biden unable to string more than a few words together before getting steamrolled by an assertive and comparatively alive Trump.

In the aftermath, aides told Axios that they felt that they were handed empty talking points, with no confident explanations for why Biden appeared so weak and unwell during the debate. As the days drag on, that confusion has morphed into anger and resentment among a swathe of Biden’s employees, with one official involved in the campaign describing the atmosphere as “dark.”

“It feels like there is zero leadership or information,” the anonymous staffer told Axios. “People are being told to keep their heads down and keep working, but they’re not seeing the president or being given any reason why they should have faith in him.”

That feeling was shared in the White House, with one unnamed official telling Axios that “people are looking for leadership and direction that they were told to trust, and hoped was there, but aren’t yet feeling, in what is now clearly a defining moment for this presidency.”

Executive branch employees aren’t the only ones losing sight of the light in the Biden administration. On Tuesday alone, several prominent Democrats, including former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, have signaled it may be time for Biden to remove himself from the race. Representative Jim Clyburn, whose 2020 endorsement helped Biden secure his last nomination, announced his support for Vice President Kamala Harris to take the reins “if [Biden] were to step aside,” and Texas Representative Lloyd Doggett became the first House member to formally call on Biden to withdraw from the race.

A new leaked poll shows support for President Joe Biden plummeting in key battleground states around the country in the wake of his disastrous debate performance on Thursday.

Puck News gained access to an internal Democratic polling memo conducted 72 hours after the debate, and it’s bad: Several states that were considered solidly blue are now competitive for Donald Trump, including Colorado, New Hampshire, Virginia, and New Mexico. Plus, other Democrats, such as Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, are polling better than Biden in head-to-head matchups with the convicted felon and former president.

The polling came from OpenLabs, a nonprofit specializing in polling for Democratic organizations, and found that 40 percent of 2020 Biden voters now think the president should step aside, an increase from about 25 percent in May. Swing voters believe Biden should drop out by a 2-to-1 margin.

Democrats and Trump opponents may take solace in the fact that Biden only dropped in national head-to-head polling with Trump by 0.08 points. However, in battleground states, Biden is performing much worse. For example, Biden trails Trump by seven points in Pennsylvania, compared to five points before the debate. He also is behind Trump in Michigan (seven points), Georgia (10 points), and Nevada (nine points).

While this is only one poll, conducted immediately after the debate, it reportedly has been circulating in Democratic circles, and may be a factor behind the worries being openly expressed by top Democrats. Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said that Biden’s mental condition was a “legitimate concern” on Tuesday, and one of the longest serving Democrats in the House, Representative Lloyd Doggett, has even called for Biden to withdraw from the 2024 presidential race.

Can the Biden campaign right the ship and restore calm? ProPublica released an unedited September interview with the president that shows him alert and mentally fit, and Biden also appeared to be lucid and sharp in a North Carolina rally on Friday. He will need more positive counterexamples like those two, as well as a better performance at September’s presidential debate in order to assuage concerns not just from top Democrats, but also voters across the political spectrum.  

A new report by The New York Times paints a damning picture of Joe Biden’s mental and physical state in the weeks leading up to last week’s debate.

Times reporters who spoke with insiders close to the administration and the campaign revealed that Biden has appeared “confused or listless, or would lose the thread of conversations” over the past few months, even as he’s been “sharp and engaged most of the time.”

Republicans have ramped up attacks on Biden’s age and fitness with edited videos of Biden appearing to freeze, disoriented, at several public events, including a D-Day commemoration at Normandy, a Juneteenth celebration, and diplomatic meetings across Europe. The Biden campaign dismissed these videos as “cheap fakes.” But it’s now clear that Biden’s condition, punctuated by his poor debate performance, alarmed many before he took the stage.

According to the Times, Biden’s European trips were a mixed bag of “moments of sharpness … including a complex session on diverting income from Russian assets to aid Ukraine’’ and “occasional blank-stared confusion.” But European officials were reportedly “shocked” by a “noticeable decline in Mr. Biden’s physical state since the previous fall” and observed that he appeared “out of it.” European leaders at the G7 summit are reported to have held private conversations about Biden’s condition, and one former official is said to have expressed doubt about Biden’s ability to handle an adversary like Vladimir Putin.

But the most shocking revelation in the report concerns Biden’s debate preparation. According to the Times, prep meetings began no earlier than 11 a.m., and included time for a daily nap. Biden surrogates have blamed his performance on bad strategy, calling him “over-coached” and “over-practiced.”

As the campaign digs its heels in against those questioning the president’s fitness, any evidence that the debate was not an outlier but an alarmingly common occurrence will feed the increasingly strident calls for Biden to withdraw from the race.