Joe Biden has long held a chip on his shoulder about people thinking he’s not very bright and for a long time has disliked wealthy, Ivy League liberals who have often sneered at his “working class Joe” schtick.
In 2023, the Financial Times explained why Biden was so motivated to get a second term: “But anyone who knows of Biden’s very large chip, particularly when it comes to Obama, knows what is motivating him: he wants to show the world that Amtrak Joe of Scranton, Wilmington and Syracuse can have a presidency just as successful — if not more so — than constitutional law professor Obama, late of the University of Chicago and the Harvard Law Review. That would require eight years, not four. He won’t drop out, for the same reason that those who predicted he would not seek re-election were wrong.”
Now, that chip on Biden’s shoulder may be growing larger by the minute as, in the president’s own words, “party elites” have begun to pressure him to step aside and no one may cause Biden to dig in his heels more than his democratic predecessor’s latest moves.
The Daily Caller reports that Biden has begun to believe that his former boss, Barack Obama, has started moving chess pieces around to push him out of office.
President Joe Biden’s campaign thinks former President Barack Obama is secretly coordinating the growing push for the president to drop out of the race, “Morning Joe” host Joe Scarborough asserted on Thursday.
Obama allies have pounced on Biden as the president and his team strive to maintain his standing as the presumptive Democratic nominee following his disastrous debate performance. The Biden campaign and “Democratic officials” suspect Obama himself is behind the effort, Scarborough said, adding he believes it will backfire.
“What’s going on behind the scenes is the Biden campaign and many Democratic officials do believe that Barack Obama is quietly working behind the scenes to orchestrate this,” Scarborough said. “And if Joe Biden believes that, that’s not going to get him out of the race any faster. Any time David Axelrod attacks him, David Axelrod ensures that Joe Biden will dig himself in another day. Any time the pod bros say something nasty about Joe Biden, which they have repeatedly said nasty things about Joe Biden, before the debate, after the debate. Every time they do that, he digs in a little bit further.”
Jon Favreau, a former Obama aide who hosts Pod Save America, corroborated Democratic donor and actor George Clooney’s Wednesday New York Times op-ed alleging Biden is in cognitive decline. David Axelrod, Obama’s chief campaign strategist, called the op-ed “devastating.”
Biden Campaign Believes Obama Is Working ‘Behind The Scenes’ To ‘Orchestrate’ Calls To Step Down, Joe Scarborough Says pic.twitter.com/rU5q58TSUY
— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) July 11, 2024
The move would be a change of direction for Barack Obama, if true. Following Biden’s debate performance, the former president appeared to have the presumptive Democratic nominee’s back, writing, ““Bad debate nights happen. Trust me, I know. But this election is still a choice between someone who has fought for ordinary folks his entire life and someone who only cares about himself.”
After some begging from Democrats, CNN reported, that both Obama and Pelosi have spoken with Biden about the future of his campaign, expressing concerns about the state of the race.
“Democrats are desperate for the dispiriting infighting to end so they can get back to trying to beat the former president. And they’re begging either Obama or Pelosi to help them get there, aware that Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer doesn’t have the trust of Biden and that House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries doesn’t have the depth of relationship to deliver the message.
CNN spoke with more than a dozen members of Congress, operatives and multiple people in touch with both Obama and Pelosi, many of whom say that the end for Biden’s candidacy feels clear and at this point it’s just a matter of how it plays out, even after Thursday night’s news conference.
Pelosi has spoken to Biden since the debate, but in the time since, the California Democrat has made clear that she does not see Biden’s decision to stay in the race as final. But she, through an aide, declined to comment further.
But Obama’s deepening skepticism about his friend’s ability to win reelection is one of the worst kept secrets in Washington.
When the history of this extraordinary two-week period of American politics is written, the fingerprints of Obama and Pelosi will be far more apparent than currently known, people familiar with the matter tell CNN, as the Democratic elders have served as a guidepost for a party in panic.”
Like a young child, a source told CNN, Pelosi and Obama are waiting for Biden to reach the “right” decision “on his own.”
Obama, according to the report, does not think he can influence Biden either way, noting that the two rarely speak with each other.
One source went as far as saying Biden would likely recall Obama urging him not to run in 2015 and say, to the effect, “Well, Mr. President, you already used that chip in 2015 and it got us Donald Trump.”
Obama could be too busy to get Biden to drop out anyway, earlier in the week the former president hung out with the USA men’s basketball team as they get ready to go to the Olympics.
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