A couple of days ago, the public saw multiple reports about Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries — Congress’ top two Democrats — having taken steps to encourage President Joe Biden to forgo his re-election plans. There was related reporting that House Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi has also privately told Biden “that she and other Democratic lawmakers worry that he’s dragging down the party.”
A day later, however, the reports were considerably worse for the incumbent president.
The Washington Post, for example, reported that Barack Obama has “told allies in recent days that President Biden’s path to victory has greatly diminished and he thinks the president needs to seriously consider the viability of his candidacy.” The public also learned about a letter Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin sent to the president, suggesting he step aside.
The Post also reported that Pelosi has told some House Democrats she believes Biden “can be persuaded fairly soon to exit the presidential race amid serious doubts he can win in November,” which dovetailed with a New York Times report that said several people close to the president said that they believe “he has begun to accept the idea that he may not be able to win in November and may have to drop out of the race.”
Unfortunately for the incumbent, there’s more. Bloomberg News reported that some members of Biden’s White House Cabinet have also had “private discussions among themselves” about whether to “reckon with him” about his electoral future.
Meanwhile, on Capitol Hill, the number of Democratic members calling on the president to pass the torch keeps growing — in both chambers — and even the Congressional Black Caucus, which has been unyielding in its support for Biden, acknowledged that “things are fluid.”
In case this weren’t quite enough, The Wall Street Journal highlighted a polling report from Blue Rose Research, a Democratic firm, which found Biden losing every battleground state, and struggling in New Hampshire, Minnesota, New Mexico, Virginia, Maine, and even New Jersey — states he won with ease four years ago.
And yet, despite all of this, as the day came to an end, the Biden campaign sent out talking points that read in part, “The president is his party’s nominee. … He’s running for re-election, and that will not change until he wins re-election.”
Technically, that wasn’t true — the party’s nominee will be chosen at the convention, which is still weeks away — but the statement nevertheless indicated Team Biden isn’t prepared to look for an offramp, at least not yet. It was against this backdrop that NBC News reported that Biden “feels personally hurt and betrayed by the way so many Democrats, including some of the party’s top leaders, have left him hung out to dry.” The same report quoted a source close to the president who appeared eager to lash out at Democratic leaders. “Can we all just remember for a minute that these same people who are trying to push Joe Biden out are the same people who literally gave us all Donald Trump? In 2015, Obama, Pelosi, Schumer pushed Biden aside in favor of Hillary; they were wrong then, and they are wrong now,” the source told NBC News. … “Perhaps we should learn a few lessons from 2016; one of them is polls are BS — just ask Secretary Clinton. And two, maybe, just maybe, Joe Biden is more in touch with actual Americans than Obama-Pelosi-Schumer?” the source added in unusually blunt language that represents the views of those closest to Biden.
As much as I can appreciate Team Biden’s frustrations, as a rule, when campaigns are behind, and the team reaches an everyone-is-wrong-except-us stage, that’s not great. Complicating matters, when a Democratic incumbent’s political operation is lashing out at Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, and Chuck Schumer — blaming them for Trump — that’s not great, either. And finally, when Biden demands to see polling evidence that he’s losing, only to have his team say that “polls are BS” when the data says he’s losing, that’s also not great.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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