All right, guys, have a whole lot of breaking news for you with regards to the Biden campaign deathwatch. Things seem to be moving very quickly, which is why I wanted to get this video out for you this evening. I'm just going to go through you for you all of the latest reporting that we have. But the TLDR is bunch of sources, bunch of networks saying that he could be dropping out of the race as early as the next few days. Cautionary note, none of this is final.
None of this is saying it's completely determinative. But you add this to some of the things we reported in the show today about Schumer, Pelosi, Jeffries. Now we have new reporting about Obama all making aggressive moves against Biden, fundraising all but drying up, and he himself opening the door to a potential exit. And it sure is starting to look like the writing is on the wall. So
let me go ahead and put this first report. This really broke things open earlier today from Axios, the headline here behind the curtain top Dems now believe Biden will exit. Let me read you a decent bit of this report so you can hear everything they're saying here the way
they're phrasing it. In all of that, they say, several top Democrats privately tell us the rising pressure of party congressional leaders and close friends will persuade President Biden to decide to drop out of the presidential race as soon as this weekend. So they go on to talk about how the eighty one year old president is now self isolating. Privately, he is resigned to mounting pressure, bad polls, and untenable
scrutiny making it impossible to continue his campaign. The Democrats tell us the private message distilled to its bluntest form. The top leaders of his party, his friends, and key donors believe he cannot win, can't change public perceptions of his age and acuity, and can't deliver congressional majorities. The president is being told that if he stays in, former President Trump could win an a landslide and wipe away
Biden's legacy and Democrats hopes in November. They go on to say the pressure to step aside has been rising to intolerable levels, especially over the past few days. Democrats fully expect polls after the RNC to show a possible blowout that could bring down Democrats in Congress too, And the way that it is being framed is his choice
is to be one of history's heroes. Wouldn't really say that myself when you are committing a genocide, but will put that aside or to be sure of the fact that there will never be a Biden presidential library, one of the president's close friends told us, I pray he
does the right thing. He is headed that way. They go on to recount some of the reporting when brought to you earlier about Pelosi, Schumer, Jeffries, Obama, apparently Bill and Hillary Clinton also making moves behind the scenes and keeping quiet and not throwing him any sort of a lifeline publicly, which is also very notable. They go on to give some reality check here at the end, Biden can't be forced out, and he has the delegates. No one can physically pry them away. He needs to do
it by choice and on his terms. But when you have this level of pressure, every Democratic power broker remaining in the party moving against you publicly, now leaking to the press and coming out against you when you have and I'll let me go ahead and put this next piece up on the screen, because this says from NBC News and contains this reporting When you have fundraising all but drying up, how in the world are you going
to try to persist? So NBC News sort of similar reporting this from the perspective of those who are surrounding Biden, who are realizing it's not an if but a When the headline here, We're close to the end, Biden world braces for the possibility that the president will step aside. This recounts, you know, the sense from within Biden world. They say there's a palpable sense 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 are close to the end, close to the end. A person close to Biden said that person who previously doubted Biden would ever step aside acknowledge that it's still the president's decision, but joined in the array of Biden allies who say he is nearing a point of no return.
If you read on in this article, they say that the fund raising drop has been more precipitous than anyone could have imagined. A person with knowledge that the Biden campaign now expects it will raise only twenty five percent of the big donor money it had originally projected to raise in July. That's a further downgrade. Originally they were expecting it would be down by fifty percent, which is
still horrific. Now they're saying they will only raise it'll be down seventy five percent, So they'll only raise twenty five percent of the big donor money that they had planned on. And grassroots donations have all but dried up as well. So you've got the money gone, You've got Bill, Hillary, Obama, Schumer, Jeffries,
Pelosi all moving against him. You have him seemingly somewhat receptive now and increasing reporting that a decision could come this weekend or I haven't even seen suggestions even possibly before, but the sourcing on those were a little flimsy. Let me goe and put the next I'm just going to go through everything that we've seen today so you can get a sense of what we know and where we're at.
This is again Democrats expect Biden to at least indicate this weekend that he's dropping out, and if he doesn't indicate it soon, expect more leaks and calls for him to step aside from members of Congress. In short, the
beatings will continue until morale improves. So this is noteworthy because, first of all, once again lays not that timeline of by this weekend there's at least going to be some indication that he is dropping out, and that if we don't get that indication, then it's not like the movement against him is going to end. It's going to ramp up, it's going to escalate. It's going to continue until he makes the decision that they all want him to make.
You know, that's always been the subtext when Pelosi in particular goes on TV and says we want to give him time to make the decision. In the host say, well, he said, he's already made his decision. We want to give him time to make the decision they want him to make. So they're going to continue pushing until he decides to drop out of the race. So that's what's really significant about that reporting in particular. Let's see the next one, because we do have more reporting of a
hair about Barack Obama, which is also significant. This is from the Washington Post. Barack Obama has told allies in recent days that Biden's path to victory is greatly diminished, and he thinks the President needs to seriously consider the viability of his candidacy. Now, this isn't a surprise. We talked to you before about how the Clooney op ed, the George Clooney op ed that had been run by Obama. Clearly Obama's fingerprints were all over that when George Clooney
being a close ally. The fact that from the beginning you've had David Axelrod and the podse Bros. These are all Obama people who were forcefully making the case against Joe Biden have always been an indication of where Barack
Obama actually stands. What is noteworthy about these new reports that have been coming out, you know, the floodgates have really opened up, is this very clear coordination between all of these individuals who appear to have attempted to make the case behind the scenes so that it could appear that Biden came to this decision on his own. When that didn't work, there appears to be this coordinated now campaign to pressure him from Obama and Pelosi at al
to leave the race. And that's the pressure campaign that you've seen, you know, it was put on freeze for a couple of days, really not very long during you know, in the wake of the President Trump assassination attempt. Now it is back on knives around all out war to try to get him out. And they clearly have bought plat past like a point of no return. There's no tiptoeing around it at this point. They're leaking, and it's only expected to get more aggressive until he ultimately relents.
They've clearly come to the determination that it is unsustainable for him to be in the race and an utter disaster for the Democratic Party, not just at the presidential level, but at every level. I'll give you CNN did some reporting here earlier in the day with what their sources are saying. Let me go ahead and play a bit of this for you.
Well, Dana, what we know is that some of the most important conversations about President Biden's future are still happening
behind closed doors. But we are learning about conversation between former House Speaker at Nancy Pelosi and President Biden that took place as recently as in the last week or so, where Nancy Pelosi told the president that polling shows that he cannot defeat Donald Trump in November and that he could take down the House with him if he continues seeking us I in term and more forces have told us is that the President responded with defensiveness and essentially
saying to Pelosi, I have seen polls that show that I can in fact win and really just push back. And at one point in the conversation we'd told Pelosi asked that Mike donaldind the presidents senior advisor, get on the phone so that they can all have a discussion about the data. A non of our sources, Dana importantly said whether Pelosi, in this without private conversation, told the President explicitly that she believes that he needs to drop out.
Of the race.
And I will also say this marks the second known conversation between the President and Pelosi since the debate. We know that they also spoke in early July and ask for how the two camps are responding. Officially, the White House wouldn't comment on this conversation, but they did put out a statement saying President Biden is the nominee of the party and he plans to win. A Pelosi spokesperson interestingly said Pelosi has been in California since Friday, and she has not spoken to Biden since.
Now.
One thing that is really clear from this reporting data that I think is worth highlighting is how the President has appeared really dug in when it comes to the polling and the data. You know, we've heard him saying in public, look, i think I'm doing okay still in the polls, and it's clear that he genuinely does believe this in private settings as well.
And you know, you know better than.
Anyone, Danna, how important of a course Nancy Pelosi is inside the party. She has such incredible sway she understands exactly where the caucus is on any political issue. And she did sort of leave open the door recently when she said in an interview it's up to the president to decide if he's going to run. And I think a huge question right now is will she get to the point at some point where she says in public that yes, it's up to him, but she believes that he needs to set aside.
Okay, I'm Jay, thank you so much for that important reporting. And Jeff allenly I want to turn out to you. You pained a memo sent to Democratic officials that down ballot Democrats can't afford politically to defend Biden's fitness for office. Jeff tell us more about that.
Then, as these calls for President Biden to reconsider his candidacy really intensify, both behind and the scenes and in public, we're getting a better sense of why that is and why these leaders are making the argument. In that memo that you talked about there from a Blue Research, a democratic research firm really shared widely throughout the party, it talks about the damage this is having for Democrats down ballot.
I'm told that the Homer Housepapernancyploszy reads this pulling very carefully, as of course do many other leaders. And as we've looked through this, yes, it talks about the expanding presidential battle brand now, but it also talks about the potential damage it's been inflicted on individual Democratic candidates. And take a look at this really poignant sentence here inside the memo. It says defending Biden's fitness for office is an untenable
position for down ballot Democrats. It goes on to say that the honesty and the trustworthiness of these Democratic candidates in the House will be questioned. Voters will start to have second thoughts about them if they keep defending President Biden. Of course this is reflective also.
So there you go both reporting on. You know, it's a really interesting nugget from the Pelosi meeting that when Biden starts talking about no, I don't think the poll numbers, I don't think there's show that Jack. I think it's fine.
I'm doing great. And Pelosi says, let's get Mike Donaldin on the phone to talk this through, because she feels that Biden is being effectively lied to about the state of the race, that his old and adult mind is buying the lies because he wants to believe them, and she wanted to get to the source of the person who was providing him with this bad information, and that is his very long time political advisor, Mike Donaldan, possibly among others. But she says, let's get donaldin on the
phone and let's talk about these poll numbers. The information there from Jeff Sellini also really interesting about Okay, well, why did they decide to take what is the extraordinary action again the incumbent president Actually that they have themselves completely blocked. Remember, these are people who very easily could have created the conditions to have a real primary, so that we could have done this through sub democratic process.
But instead they completely blocked a democratic primary, held no debates, canceled literally canceled the primary in multiple states across the country, and just came out and said, Simon Sanders came out and said on MSNBC, we have an incumbent president. We are not going to have a primary process. So these are the same people who could have facilitated that process. They blocked that, leaving it outside of a possible real
democratic means and creating these conditions. Now where the writing is on the wall, they realize how completely screwed they are, not only in terms of blocking Trump, but in terms of every single Democratic candidate being tied to this sinking ship.
The point there, I think is a really critical one, and I think it's one that you know, AOC and Bernie and other lefties who are out there defending Biden should think about, which is, how can voters trust you when you're not being straight with him about the health condition of this man, in his ability to lead the ticket at the top, How can they have trusted you
for anything else? So I do think there is a real sense that the more closely you're tied to the Biden administration, the poor, the political position you're going to be in. So would there be some ticket splitting in the fault? Sure? Would some of the Senate candidates potentially who appear to be running ahead of Biden the polls right now, with some of them survive, maybe, But are you going to hold the Senate? No, not a chance.
I mean, it's already the longest of long shots for Democrats to be able to hold the Senate and the House where they actually do have a decent chance if they have a decent presidential candidate at the top of the ticket, that is also gone, bye bye, forget about it, based on the numbers they're seeing and how Biden drives
down absolutely every Democrat in the entire country. We had a tweet here from Ezraklin sort of summing up the state of play from how he sees it and based on his sourcing, and so it's interesting how he lays this out here. He says where things stand. Top Dems who believed even a week ago Biden would stay now believe he'll go. Note on that, I just saw the predicted markets they're betting like ninety percent. Now that Biden
is going to get out of the race. Number two, House and Senate Dems have lost faith in his ability to win. There's no way to win them back. His calls and interviews have hurt him badly. Confirmed that the debate was not a one off. So in spite of all that, oh my god, the NATO big boy press conference was so amazing. In reality, they were looking there like you introduced Zelenski as putin, you called Harris vice
president Trump. The press conference was not, in fact masterful, in spite of the spin that was put on it by the media after the fact. And by the way, by the time they got to that point, they were already convinced that he was unfit and incapable of steering this ship. Number three donors are also gone. Biden may well not have the money to run a real campaign against Trump. If he stays in, money will go down ballot. Imagine that. Imagine he stays in and he has no
money in order to run ads. Right now, part of what's keeping him afloat at all is dramatically out spending Trump in the battleground states, and you know, put these punishing ads and about abortion in particular. Imagine there's no money to do that. How badly that's going to go for him. Number Four, Biden is thinking things over in a way he wasn't before, and the view is he
needs time to process and consider. He's at home self isolating in Rehopeth right now as we speak, so they're hoping that is the time he needs to process and consider. Number Five. If Biden digs in after the weekend, public pressure from Dems will increase ugly in a way no one wants, but a lot of grim determination also growing sensitive Biden stays in, this will come to be seen as the kind of political catastrophe you do not want to later be seen as silent in I've been making.
You know, these people who think that they're being clever politically by standing by Biden, and there's the smart political move and will set them up for their twenty twenty eight ambitions or whatever. What a bunch of fools, What a bunch of fools. Everyone is going to look at this in the future and say where were you on
this question and what did you do? Because to stand by Biden in this moment is just an act of complete, you know, political malpractice, and if you are democratic minded if you really believe Trump is a threat, which I do, then it's also just an incredible betrayal of the rhetoric and what Democrats have been saying for years and years about this guy, that when it came down to it, they weren't willing to do what it takes to put forward a candidate that actually had a shot at winning.
Number six. The moment Biden bows out, he will be treated as a hero among Democrats, a statesman who made the kind of country and party first decision that Trump never would. People get that this is hard. He's being asked to do something very few leaders do. Okay, well, I really am sick of hearing what a hero Joe Biden, who's doing a genocide, is, But I have no doubt he is correct that that is exactly how we will
be treated and discussed among Democrats. Number seven, uniting around Kamala Harris feels a lot likelier than an open convention, much as I've supported the latter. This is grueling enough. You Democrats have the stomach for another hard thing, and time is very short.
Now.
There is some other reporting I'm going to bring you that is a little less grounded, perhaps, but I just want to put it out there so you know what I'm looking at and you can make of it what you will. That actually Biden isn't planning to endorse Kamala Harris, that he does want an open convention. And I just saw some also not thoroughly rock solid reporting that Gretchen Whitmer and one other of the likely candidates has said to Kamala Harris, I don't want to be your potential
VP because they're eyeing that crown themselves. I'll look that up in just a moment to bring you what that other name is. Number eight. Many thought RNC would help Biden by changing the subject. Instead, seeing a United Republican Party has focus Dems. They've realized they cannot rely on Trump just to lose this imagined they do the whole rn C running against the wrong candidate. That would be
really funny. And Trump is, I'm sure already really irritated that his moment is being stepped on by this news. And if Biden does drop, you know, in the coming days, the RNC and everything that happened, there is going to be a back burner, back burner. Everyone's going to forget about it instantly, and it's going to be the story of the day, which he will absolutely hate not to mention. You know, they get that Biden is the weakest possible
candidate that they could run against. They even find Kamala Harris. They don't they're not intimidated by her, but they find her to be more of a credible threat than Biden at this point, which is just borne out by reality in the polls and the fact that she can. Her sentences can be a little loopy, but they are in fact sentences, and she seems to be capable of holding a coherent thought from sentence one to sentence two. Number nine Democratic Party is acting like an actual party. Question
mark quite a thing to watch. Let me look up this this message I got about. Oh, it's Gavin Newsom is the other one and Gretchen Whitmer, who have communicated to senior party leaders that they would not be interested in serving as Harris's running mate. According to a person familiar with the candidates in the mix to join Harris atop the ticket, this is from a decision desk HQ contributor who I'm not familiar with. That's why this is no like knock on. Nick Field is the name of
this reporter. No knock on him. I'm just not familiar with him or the extent of his sourcing. That's why I put a little caveat on that one.
All right, I.
Got one more for you here. This one's really fun from Mark Halprin. Don't know if it's true. He doesn't cite a sourcing. It just like puts out there some pretty pretty wild plans of what may unfold. So let's take a look at this, and if this is in fact how it all goes down, then Mark Alprin deserves a lot of credit for being ahead of the game with all of these details. He says breaking news. Multiple 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. John Meacham historian friend to buy whatever morning Joe Dude polishing up remarks Biden will not resign the presidency. Biden will not endorse Harris. Imagine that open convention with Harris and about three others who would those others be super delegates will not be
allowed to vote on the first ballot. Harris is vetting at least four possible running mates, including Andy Basheer, he's the very popular Democratic governor of Kentucky, and possibly Josh Shapiro. He's the also very popular governor of Pennsylvania. So obviously those would be you know, interesting picks. And along the lines of people who have been flow of Roy Cooper and North Carolina is another one that has been frequently
floated in connection with Kamala Harris. I don't know if any of this is true with regards to this tweet. Like I said, he does in cite his sources. I don't know, but it's exciting to think that there could be an open convention instead of just anointing Kamala Harris.
You know, as much as the coconut pilled people out there has something else to say about that, but listen, personally, I would rather have Harris than Biden at this point, even though you know, for me it's a little complex, because the bottom line is the man can't string two sentences together. He shouldn't be running the country today. He should certainly not be running the country four years from now.
They completely lied to the American people. They tried to deny what was in front of all of our eyes and ears all along. It's disgusting, it's an utter betrayal, and for that alone, he deserves to go. I will say, his domestic agenda, I think is better than what Kamala Harris is likely to do. You know, he has been good at answer trust, He has been better than Obama
on things like labor. There have been real populous turns, and now in his sort of death throes of the campaign, he has been making an even harder populist pivot because he perceives all of it being this elite class that's against him. Of course, sixty seven percent of rank and file Democrats also want him out. But you know, as I said, the status of his health is, it's unforgivable the way this has been hidden, the narcissism, the ego here, the utter anti democratic rejection of any sort of an
open primary process. And then this is a person who has been the most immoral, genocidal maniac you can imagine, and is ideologically committed to it. It's possible that a just sort of normy Democrat who would view that conflict through a more partisan lens, because bb Neatnau has made himself a very partisan figure, may be better in Kamala Harris in particular, there is some reporting to suggest that she has been a bit of a dissident on the issue.
So that's how I think about these things. It was sort of resigned to, okay, well, was probably just going to be Kamala, And I think it's still probably most likely that it's just Kamala, even if there's an open convention process, because it's not like that's a real democratic process.
These are all still democratic diehards. But even if you have that open process, I still think she'd be probably the favorite because she comes from California, there's a huge delegation, she's the sitting vice president, a lot of people feel, you know, I care about her, the historic nature of her position, her identity, and don't want to pass over her. She's well and all those things give her a real
leg up even in that process. But it is, in my opinion, vastly superior to have some options on the table outside of just Kamala Harris. Who even if you just you don't care about any of the policle you're just looking at purely who is most electable. She is like the second worst candidate after Joe Biden. Himself. So you're approving your position if you're the Democratic Party by putting her at the top of the ticket, but not
by that much. So if you're gonna do this wild and wacky thing and push Joe Biden out of the race, and it is unprecedented and it is wild, why not go all the way and actually try to get behind you know, a Gretchen Whitmer, who is locke on winning Michigan and probably had is very popular and you know, has proven to have some ability to win voters over.
Why not get behind a potentially Jos Shapiro, you know, coming out of Pennsylvania, another state's very popular there, or in Andy Sheer or Roy Cooper aroun in North Carolina.
JB.
Pritzker, who has got this you know, larger than life sort of persona. The he's kind of, you know, framed as the everyman billionaire kind of a guy. Why not open things up so that there are more choices than just the second least electable Democrat in the entire country, who is way too tied in to what has been a historic cover up of Biden's actual health conditions and the fact that she was involved in that. That's going to be a problem for her with voters coming into November.
So in any case, that is what I know about the lay of the land. It really does feel like things are moving quite quickly now. It does feel like the sort of death rattle of the Biden campaign. He is a very stubborn man, though, so you wouldn't want to say one hundred percent, but it is looking increasingly likely based on this reporting, that he may be out, and he may be out very soon. So we will keep you updated