Obama’s Private Conversations About Biden Sure Don’t Sound Great

Behind closed doors, former President Barack Obama’s tune is more concerning than his public expressions of support would suggest, according to The Washington Post. Obama spoke with Biden on Thursday night after the debate, offering to act as a “sounding board and private counselor.” And privately, he assessed to aides that Biden’s debate performance made his already tough reelection chances harder, according to unnamed sources who spoke with the Post.

Following Biden’s disastrous debate performance last Thursday that continues to shake the Democratic Party, Obama released a statement brushing off the debate performance and pointing to his own abysmal first debate against Mitt Romney in 2012.

Obama’s private rhetoric is in stark contrast to his public statement brushing off Biden’s debate performance as an anomaly. Meanwhile, Biden’s debate has so thoroughly disturbed Democrats that a growing number of Democratic lawmakers and donors seem to be looking for ways to pressure him to step down—a move that the White House and his campaign have firmly rejected.

“President Biden is grateful for President Obama’s unwavering support since the very start of this campaign as both a powerful messenger to voters and a trusted adviser directly to the president,” Lauren Hitt, a spokesperson for Biden’s campaign told The Washington Post.

As with Obama’s private discussions, concerns about Biden’s ability to remain the Democratic nominee have continued to spew forth like leaks in a sinking ship in the days since Biden’s debate. Meanwhile, public calls for Biden to step aside have increased, as have damning polls about Biden’s reelection chances.

Biden’s campaign and the White House remain insistent that he will “absolutely not” drop out, with supporters attempting to shift the narrative by recasting Biden as an underdog duking it out against fascists and bedwetters. According to The New York Times, Biden privately acknowledged his upcoming events this week pose a make-or-break moment to pull his campaign out of its nosedive and convince voters he can survive another term. Meanwhile, conservatives are cooking up a plan to make it “extraordinarily difficult” for Biden to step down and find a replacement on the Democratic ticket.

A poll released by CNN on Tuesday shows 75 percent of voters support anyone else leading the Democratic ticket over Biden, with another CBS poll released on Monday indicating 72 percent of voters doubt Biden’s mental fitness to lead.

Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey filed a lawsuit Wednesday against New York state alleging that the gag orders placed on Donald Trump during his hush-money trial constituted election interference. 

The lawsuit alleged that Trump’s gag orders and impending sentencing, which was recently postponed to September, illegally interfered with elections in other states, violated the Purcell principle, and violated the First Amendment rights of the citizens of Missouri “to listen to the campaign speech of a specific individual on specific topics.”

In the filing, lawyers for Missouri argued that the gag orders placed on Trump should be removed, “so Missourians can participate in the election free from New York’s exercise of coercive power limiting the ability of the Trump campaign.” Bailey has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to weigh in on the dispute, and remove Trump’s gag order once and for all. 

It seems the specific topic the suit refers to is Trump’s opinions about New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan, his staff, and his family members, whom Trump was barred from speaking about during his trial. He repeatedly railed against them online, stirring up a frenzy of right-wing hysteria over the supposedly rigged trial. Ultimately, the jury found Trump guilty of 34 felony counts for falsifying business documents.  

Ahead of his debate against President Joe Biden, the gag order on Trump was partially lifted, allowing him to make comments about witnesses and jurors who deliberated over the case. Merchan kept intact the part of the order that prevents him from publicly speaking about the lawyers and staff of the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office and their families. Trump is allowed to speak about District Attorney Alvin Bragg.

Trump supporters remain enraged at the limitations. “New York is waging war on American Democracy—and Missouri will not let it stand,” Bailey wrote on X. “I will not sit idly by while Soros-backed prosecutors in New York hold Missouri voters hostage in this presidential election.” 

The Purcell principle is a uniquely open-ended doctrine that comes from the 2006 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Purcell v. Gonzalez, which found that courts could not change election rules in the short period of time just before an election takes place, because it creates confusion among the electorate. Trump’s criminal trial for his hush-money scheme took place in May, six months before the polls open in November—so it’s not exactly clear how the gag order could constitute the kind of last-minute change to election rules prevented by Purcell. 

While the math on this strategy might not quite work out, it’s on par with Bailey’s original plan to oppose Trump’s conviction on the basis that prosecutors had missed the statute of limitations—which of course, wasn’t the case at all. 

Bailey’s suit seeks a stay on Trump’s gag orders so the presumptive Republican nominee can continue to spew whatever attacks he sees fit against anyone he decides is an enemy. “This lawfare is poisonous to American democracy,” Bailey said in a statement. “The American people ought to be able to participate in a presidential election free from New York’s interference. Any gag order and sentence should be stayed until after the election.”

It’s not clear yet whether the highest court in the land will hear Bailey’s case. 

Conservatives may pull all of the stops to stop Democrats if the party tries to replace Joe Biden on the November election ticket, according to a memo from a top right-wing think tank.

The Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project began researching the laws for replacing a president in several battleground states about four months ago, putting together a report in April and releasing it before Thursday’s debate disaster, according to NOTUS.

“If the Biden family decides that President Biden will not run for re-election, the mechanisms for replacing him on ballots vary by state,” the memo states. “There is the potential for pre-election litigation in some states that would make the process difficult and perhaps unsuccessful.”

When NOTUS reached out to the Oversight Project, its executive director, Mike Howell, didn’t mince words, saying that they believe replacing Biden would be “extraordinarily difficult,” and that “we would make it extraordinarily difficult.”

“We’ve zeroed in on a few states that we think are the best case,” Howell said, refusing to elaborate on which ones. “It all depends on when and how they do it. And then what state that we’re looking at now that matches up to be the right one, going in there and working with the right people.”

With calls to replace Biden growing within the Democratic Party, and leading members openly discussing the prospect, the fact that the Heritage Foundation, arguably the GOP’s ideological engine, has already been preparing to thwart any such plans is worrying. According to the memo, the key states of Wisconsin, Nevada, and Georgia are where legal action to keep Biden on the ballot could pay off.

Democrats might be able to derail such efforts if Biden is replaced quickly, as he still doesn’t officially have the party’s nomination for president. While this would normally be determined at August’s Democratic National Convention, the party was planning to select Biden in a virtual roll call before then to avoid the prospect of certain states with timing laws excluding him from their ballots.

The Trump campaign would back the Heritage Foundation’s efforts to fight a Biden replacement, as they see Biden as a weaker opponent now.

“We definitely want the dementia patient,” a source close to Trump told NOTUS. “They made their bed; they get to sleep in it. But we also love the chaos of their public decision-making process.”

Recent polls show Biden was hurt by the debate, and he is running behind Trump across the country in several key states, and even in states previously thought safe. If Democrats think that Biden needs to be replaced, they need to decide quickly, and at the very least, they need to call upon their legal soldiers to make sure their decision holds up.

While Democratic donors and lawmakers peel away from President Joe Biden, at least one person desperately wants the incumbent to stay in the race: Donald Trump.

“We need to make sure Biden stays on the ballot and there’s no bait and switch,” a 2020 Trump staffer told Vanity Fair.

Trump was, himself, taken aback by Biden’s frailty during last week’s debate. One source that was briefed on Trump’s conversations after the event told the publication that the former president was “sad for America” and then “upset” by Biden’s mindless performance.

After spending months attempting to chop Biden down for his fragile health, a new, younger candidate opposing him at the top of the ticket would be the worst-case scenario for Trump. And some close to the presumptive GOP presidential nominee now believe that Trump walked straight into a trap by agreeing to partake in the earliest presidential debate in televised history, offering ample time for Democrats to find another option in case voters turned on Biden.

Several centrist governors are circulating in the conservative ecosphere as alternatives to Biden, including Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, and New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy. Vice President Kamala Harris is also being viewed as a credible option, with the 2020 staffer telling Vanity Fair that the Democratic Party wouldn’t be able to “sidestep her.”

But other Trump aides weren’t so sure that the Democratic effort to replace Biden on the ticket would prevail.

“They’re stuck with Biden,” a senior Trump campaign staffer told Vanity Fair.

President Joe Biden’s campaign is desperately trying to assure the American people that he won’t be dropping out of the race, and that includes staffers at the White House.

Biden’s campaign circulated an all-staff memo Wednesday morning that included internal polling that shows the president neck and neck with former President Donald Trump, ahead of a forthcoming poll from The New York Times/Siena College. According to the memo, the Times poll is expected to “show a slightly larger swing in the race” following Biden’s disastrous performance at the first presidential debate last week.

The campaign’s internal polling of battleground states found that Biden has only dropped half a percentage point since his lackluster debate performance, going from 43 percent to 42 percent, according to Politico, which received a copy of the memo. Meanwhile, the polling found that Trump only improved his advantage by 0.2 percent.

These results are markedly more optimistic for Biden than others. CBS released a poll Wednesday that found Trump had a three-point advantage in battleground states, and a two-point advantage nationally. A CNN poll released Tuesday found that most voters believe Democrats could improve their bid for the White House by backing a different candidate.

It’s worth noting, though, that the debate was expected to provide Biden a massive boost in popularity. So the fact that his performance has dropped, even by a tiny amount, is still a bad sign.

While the results of these polls have sent many Democrats running around like chickens with their heads cut off, the Biden campaign has insisted that they should keep calm and carry on.

“We are going to see a few polls come out today and we want you all to hear from us on what we know internally and what we expect to come externally,” said the memo. “Polls are a snapshot in time and we should all expect them to continue to fluctuate—it will take a few weeks, not a few days, to get a full picture of the race.”

As shortsighted as it is to change one’s tune over the results of a couple of polls, the criticisms of Biden postdebate don’t seem to be going anywhere just yet, If anything, the search for a new candidate only appears to be growing in strength, with Democratic leaders offering to back Vice President Kamala Harris should Biden choose to withdraw.

Maintaining business as usual is a particularly difficult message to sell given that Biden has reportedly said he is weighing whether to drop out, reports which the White House has been quick to deny. As tensions rise within the Democratic Party, calming nerves and quelling dissent may go hand in hand for Biden’s inner circle, who have been accused of shielding him from calls to withdraw.

Biden told an unnamed key ally that he knows his campaign is on its last leg if he can’t convince the American public that he’s up for the job following his disastrous debate performance last Thursday, according to The New York Times. The details of the story have been largely overlooked as the White House fumes over the Times’ quickly spreading headline: “Biden Told Ally That He Is Weighing Whether to Continue in the Race.”

Andrew Bates, a spokesperson for the Biden campaign, rejected the Times’ headline, calling it “absolutely false.” Bates did not comment on the content of the article detailing the president’s understanding that he needs to prove his debate performance was an anomaly this week.

The report seems to be the first indication that Biden understands the stakes here. Publicly, the campaign has insisted that concerns over his debate performance are nothing more than misplaced anxiety from “the bedwetting brigade.”

“He knows if he has two more events like that, we’re in a different place,” the unnamed ally told The New York Times on the condition of anonymity on Wednesday, citing upcoming Biden appearances ahead of the Fourth of July holiday weekend that, according to the Times, “must go well.”

Biden is slated to participate in campaign stops in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin as well as an interview on Friday with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos. Fallout from his debate performance has been prolific. In a private call with Democratic donors on Wednesday revealed by Semafor, discussions swirled around what would need to be done to push Biden to leave the race and the uphill battle to find a suitable replacement.

Dmitri Mehlhorn, adviser to LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman, attempted to defend Biden remaining in the race by arguing that Kamala Harris is less popular than a “dead” or “comatose” Biden.

“Kamala Harris is more threatening to those swing voters than a dead Joe Biden or a comatose Joe Biden,” one Democratic donor said on the call. “So if Joe has to go, it’s gonna be Kamala and if it’s Kamala, it’s gonna be harder.”

A CBS poll conducted after the first presidential debate found an astonishing 72 percent of voters don’t think Biden has the mental and cognitive health to serve as president. Following the debate, the razor-thin margins between Biden and Trump widened slightly, with Trump leading Biden by 41 to 38 percent, according to polling from USA Today/Suffolk University, and 41.8 to 40.4 percent, according to 538. A CNN poll published Tuesday found an eye-popping 75 percent of voters think Democrats have a better chance of retaining the White House if Biden isn’t the nominee. That’s a lot of bedwetters.

Despite the Supreme Court giving Donald Trump near-absolute immunity and the rest of his trials certain to continue after Election Day, the Department of Justice doesn’t plan to back down in its cases against the former president and convicted felon.

A new report from The Washington Post, citing sources close to the department, said that prosecutors plan to pursue cases with a deadline of Inauguration Day in January, in keeping with the Supreme Court’s ruling that a sitting president can’t be prosecuted.

“The Justice Department isn’t governed by the election calendar. Its prosecution of Trump is based on the law, the facts and the Justice Manual—the department’s bible that lays out the post-Watergate norms that have prevented it from being weaponized,” Anthony Coley, a spokesperson for Attorney General Merrick Garland until last year, told the Post.

“Until those norms change, or they’re ordered otherwise, I’d expect this Justice Department to be full speed ahead. And they should be,” Coley added.

The Supreme Court’s ruling also placed restrictions on what kind of evidence could be collected from a presidential administration, dealing heavy blows to the federal election interference case against Trump. That change alone will add more delays to the D.C. trial, which was already pushed back thanks to the Supreme Court case on presidential immunity. If Trump wins reelection, his lawyers will very likely ask federal judges to drop the case.

Trump’s other federal case involves his alleged mishandling of classified documents in Florida, where he has a friendly judge who has bogged down the case with a myriad of seemingly irrelevant hearings. Even the one guilty verdict against Trump, his hush-money case in New York, has had its sentencing hearing postponed, with the judge giving an ominous warning about the case’s fate. Trump’s election interference case in Georgia is still in limbo too.

While the DOJ’s reported intentions suggest that it will press for consequences for Trump, the fact of the matter is that thanks to the Supreme Court, Trump may evade any consequences altogether.

President Joe Biden’s performance in last week’s debate has sent the Democratic Party into a tailspin, pushing some party members to debate whether Vice President Kamala Harris would be a better replacement for a “comatose” or “dead” Biden.

This week has seen a series of calls between donors, party members, and consultants on how to push Biden out of the 2024 race as support for the incumbent president dramatically wanes in light of his age and frailty.

In a conference call featuring dozens of Democratic SuperPAC American Bridge donors held early Wednesday, former Clinton aide James Carville urged donors to consider an alternative to Biden, and said that donors who want Biden to exit the race should consider cutting off their funds from lawmakers who don’t agree with them, reported Semafor.

“Seventy-two percent of people want something different. Why not give it to them?” Carville said, according to a recording of the call obtained by Semafor. “They’re just asking for a different choice.”

In another call on Tuesday, panic rose among a bevy of Democratic donors, several of whom emphasized that keeping Biden at the top of the ticket would only encourage more Americans to vote for Donald Trump.

“What can we as donors do to encourage the change in the ticket?” asked one donor.

“If you wake Joe Biden at three o’ clock in the morning and ask him who’s president, does he get it right?” worried another.

But not everyone on the call was in agreement. Dmitri Mehlhorn, an adviser to entrepreneur and LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman, told donors to stick with Biden, since, despite his health issues, he’s still the more popular choice compared to the next obvious option.

“Kamala Harris is more threatening to those swing voters than a dead Joe Biden or a comatose Joe Biden,” Mehlhorn said. “So if Joe has to go, it’s gonna be Kamala, and if it’s Kamala, it’s gonna be harder.”

If there’s one silver lining to Biden’s devastating performance, per Carville, it’s that the symptom was caught early.

“Maybe we look back on this thing and say, ‘This is the best thing that ever happened to us,’” Carville said, according to Semafor. “If this would have happened to us on October fifth, we’d be more than bruised, screwed, and tattooed. Maybe this will set it into motion something different.”

“And maybe the people on the Zoom call, or maybe we’ll reconvene and I told November tenth and say, ‘God damn man, this thing came together a lot better than we ever thought we would back on July the second,” he added.

It seems that Representative Summer Lee has joined the K-Hive.

The Pennsylvania Democrat on Wednesday joined the steadily growing chorus of Democratic leaders sounding the alarm over concerns about President Joe Biden’s candidacy, pitching Vice President Kamala Harris as the “obvious choice” to replace him should he choose to withdraw.

“Maybe folks don’t want to hear, but we have timing that is running out. Time is not on our side,” Lee said during a radio interview, according to CBS News.

“We have a few months to do a monumental task. It’s not cheap and it’s not easy. If our president decides this is not a pathway forward for him, we have to move very quickly,” she continued. “There’s not going to be time for a primary. That time is past.”

“The vice president is the obvious choice. She’s sitting right there. She’s already been in the White House. And has the name recognition. And has been on the trail,” Lee said.

She also remarked that the “optics of pushing a Black woman aside” were “not good.”

While Lee is correct in saying that Harris would not have the chance to primary, it’s worth noting that she would be the only other Democrat who could access the $91.2 million that Biden has raised as part of his campaign, some campaign finance experts told NBC. That’s just another reason why she might be considered a top candidate to replace Biden.

On Tuesday, Texas Representative Lloyd Doggett became the first House member to formally call on Biden to withdraw from the 2024 presidential race, and Representative Jim Clyburn said he would support Harris “if [Biden] were to step aside.”

Like Clyburn, Lee’s comments stopped short of urging the president to withdraw his candidacy. Still, her comments make clear that Democrats are beginning to look elsewhere for leadership following last week’s unwieldy presidential debate.

During an appearance with MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow Tuesday night, Stormy Daniels detailed the harrowing circumstances she’s facing in the aftermath of Trump’s 34-count felony conviction and her big concerns moving forward, noting that threats against her have gotten “more graphic and detailed and brazen” because “people don’t care” to minimize their rhetoric or hide behind anonymous accounts.

“It just poured gasoline on some of the stuff that I had been going through the entire time,” Daniels told Maddow of how Trump’s guilty verdict intensified the harassment she faced throughout Trump’s hush-money trial, including explicit threats to her and her family and harm against her animals. “Some days I’m picking pellets out of my horse’s body,” Daniels said. “There have been moments where you’ve gotten to check out at least for a minute. I’ve never had a day like that in over six years.”

During the trial, Daniels said Trump followers threatened to “rape everybody in my family, including my young daughter before they killed them, very graphic things talking about a child.” Daniels further detailed the financial turmoil she’s been put into as a result of a defamation lawsuit her lawyer pursued without her consent and the legal costs of testifying against Trump. According to Daniels, she faces an estimated $600,000 in legal fees stemming from the trial and earlier defamation suit.

“I’m not afraid of what he could say about me or what he could call me.… I’m concerned [about] him saying something that will make his followers come after me,” Daniels noted in light of Judge Juan Merchan partially lifting Trump’s gag order. Asked about her concerns of Trump winning in November, Daniels expressed fear that Trump will exploit his presidential authority and give his followers permission to do whatever they want to her.

“I think that he will try to make even more of an example out of me,” Daniels said. “His followers will probably be even more bold, thinking if they do something, he’ll pardon them.”

While Daniels says costs from testifying and loss of work have been devastating, including clubs that book her getting hit with threats, the biggest struggle has been keeping her daughter safe. She told Maddow that the courts requested paperwork including her 13-year-old daughter’s legal name and date of birth, which she was unwilling to disclose, and that she’s facing possible jail time for refusing to pay legal fees from the failed defamation lawsuit.

“I didn’t fill out that part of the form. I left it blank, and they rejected it and sent it back, and are demanding that I be held in contempt with sanctions, and that I have to pay this money,” said Daniels regarding the defamation case. “I have to pay $600,000 plus sanctions and contempt of court, which comes with a warrant, possibly an arrest warrant, because the things I said which they found him guilty of, I also have to pay.”

While Daniels has started working again and friends created a GoFundMe to help her pay down legal fees and keep her home, Daniels says she’s still in the red—but most of what she’s lost has been her peace of mind.

“I’ve lost a lot more than I’ve made,” Daniels said. “Mostly my peace, mostly my daughter’s privacy and time I’ll never get back with her.”