This is an adapted excerpt from the July 22 episode of “The ReidOut.”
If you live long enough and observe politics long enough, you’re liable to see some amazing things. Over the weekend, political observers, journalists and historians got to witness one of them.
It was an event in the style of a “Game of Thrones” finale: a clash between two of the most powerful figures in modern political history, Nancy Pelosi — arguably the most effective House speaker of the modern era and the current speaker emerita — and Joe Biden, the president of the United States.
It was an event in the style of a “Game of Thrones” finale: a clash between two of the most powerful figures in modern political history.
Pelosi, who ceded the leadership of the House Democratic caucus to Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries more than a year ago, led what could be described as a political coup d’etat against Biden, whose performance in a debate three weeks ago literally sent his party into an existential panic. A panic that became the fixation of the media, and a cause among rich Democratic donors, op-ed writers, thought leaders and elected Democrats on Capitol Hill. Collectively they came to see Biden as a liability, not just for the general election against Donald Trump, but their own re-election chances as well.
The increasingly vocal and urgent calls for Biden to step aside and make way for a younger candidate who could more effectively take the fight to Trump divided the party along racial lines, with Black and Latino members seeing a deeper play at work — to oust not just Biden but Harris, too.
As the fury inside the party heated up, Democratic donors began to make the money dry up, threatening not to put another penny into the race until Biden was no longer the nominee.
Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Hakeem Leader Jeffries appeared to let it become public that the party believed Biden should go — Olenna Tyrell-style: “I want him to know it was me.”
Over the weekend, as Biden recovered from Covid, holed up in his Delaware home with his family and close friends around, came the coup de grace. Biden’s closest aides shared catastrophic internal polling with him and first lady Jill Biden that showed a certain defeat in November, not just for Biden but for Democrats down ticket, too. And so, Biden relented, putting his country before his ambition and announcing he would no longer seek a second term. The Pelosi coup had succeeded.
But Biden — a man who has been in politics since he was 29 years old as a senator and committee chairman, a two-term vice president, and the president of the United States, a man who has endured excruciating and repeated personal loss and tragedy and allowed it to fuel his determination to save the soul of this country — had one more card to play. Less than a half hour after he announced his withdrawal, Biden exercised what in many ways is the greatest power any leader has: the power to choose your own successor.
Biden bypassed the rumored wishes of the Pelosi and donor crew and fully endorsed his historic vice president to be the Democratic nominee. He threw his support behind Harris, the would-be first woman, first Black woman, and first Asian American president, on the very day state party delegations were meeting to work out the votes in the upcoming Democratic convention.
The Biden endorsement sent a lightning bolt through American politics, unlike anything I’ve seen since then-Sen. Barack Obama made his debut at the 2004 Democratic Convention, prompting Oprah Winfrey to declare him “the one.”
The Biden endorsement sent a lightning bolt through American politics, unlike anything I’ve seen since then-Sen. Barack Obama made his debut at the 2004 Democratic Convention, prompting Oprah Winfrey to declare him “the one.”
The Biden nod prompted state parties and over 200 Democratic lawmakers, one by one, to follow their president’s lead and endorse Harris. As did the various governors whose names have been tossed around as possible rivals for the nomination. As each one endorsed her, they effectively took their names off the list of competitors, allowing Harris to bask in the glow of a captivated media and unbelievable, record-breaking fundraising.
Almost exactly 24 hours after Biden’s announcement, Pelosi also fell in line, giving her full-throated endorsement to Harris.
In other words, Joe Biden, at what looked like his moment of greatest political weakness, reasserted himself as the leader of his party, from his sick bed. He checkmated the former speaker’s gambit by writing the epilogue to his own legacy in the history books: Her name is Kamala Harris, first of her name.
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Joy-Ann Reid
Joy-Ann Reid is host of “The ReidOut” at 7 p.m. ET on MSNBC. “The ReidOut” features one-on-one conversations with politicians and newsmakers while addressing provocative political issues both inside and outside of the beltway.
Allison Detzel is an editor/producer for MS NOW.