Many outlets are running with this, but, is it true? Was COVID just a fake excuse to head home and consider if he wants to continue?
‘We’re close to the end’: Biden world braces for the possibility that the president will step aside
President Joe Biden’s political world is collapsing. Top allies have either publicly or privately called on him to step aside. Major donations have fallen off a cliff. Grassroots fundraising is not keeping up with the demands of a campaign that needs to aggressively scale up three months before the presidential election. Members of his own re-election effort have already declared he has no path to victory.
Since a disastrous debate in Atlanta upended the trajectory of his campaign three weeks ago, Biden has again and again attempted to dig in, bucking efforts to dislodge him from power.
But there is now a palpable sense that the ground has shifted underneath him, according to five people with knowledge of the situation, even among some of the president’s most defiant internal backers who now believe the writing is on the wall.
“We’re close to the end,” a person close to Biden said.
But, will Jill and Hunter allow this? They seem to love the high life. Everything that comes with Joe being president. Joe is barely cognizant, so, he’ll go with whatever they tell him. But, if he does step down, what does that look like? Some are saying that Joe won’t name Kamala as his replacement. Many of the Democrat base are pissed off that the Dem big wigs will anoint someone at the convention, and they’ll get no chance to vote on who they want. Of course, how is that possible this late in the game?
BREAKING NEWS: Multiples sources outline the apparent state of play on Biden at this time:
* plans to announce withdrawal from nomination as early as this weekend, with Sunday most likely
* Jon Meacham polishing up remarks
* Biden with NOT resign the presidency
* Biden will… https://t.co/l0LrfDTvOL
— Mark Halperin (@MarkHalperin) July 18, 2024
There’s lots more info in that top tweet, but, consider: if Biden is too frail to continue to run, he’s too frail to continue to be POTUS. I wonder if Democrats will 25th Amendment him, leaving Kamala as the sitting president, hoping she will be able to beat Trump. But, would the Republicans play ball and refuse to go with this?
A person with knowledge of the projections said the Biden campaign now expects it will raise only 25% of the big donor money it had originally projected to raise in July — that’s a further downgrade from the expectation last week that large-dollar fundraising would be down by as much as 50%. The money has “dried up,” this person said.
Yeah, that’s going to make Democrats super squirrely, because it most likely means down ballot is getting shorted on big donor money.
In an interview that aired Wednesday evening, Biden said that, in addition to being shown that there was no path to victory, there was something else that would prompt him to re-evaluate his campaign.
“If I have some medical condition that emerged,” Biden suggested. “If somebody, if the doctors came to me and said you got this problem, that problem.”
Does his minor case of Wuhan Flu qualify?