Democrats’ worst nightmares about President Joe Biden’s suddenly crucial news conference Thursday came true:
It went fine.
That’s not to say Biden dazzled in what was billed as a “big boy” news conference, his first such appearance with reporters in months. He talked for about an hour and was mostly coherent. We saw plenty of word slurring, rhetorical cul-de-sacs that would make even Donald Trump blush, and the requisite angry-Grandpa Simpson moment.
But Biden didn’t make a major gaffe, wasn’t hopelessly lost, didn’t try to address any dead world leaders and didn’t repeat many of the foibles Democrats pretended not to notice until his awful debate performance two weeks ago.
What Democrats needed out of this was one of those moments, something they could show Biden, his family and his advisers to finally convey how bad the situation is. Something that even the most loyal Bidenite could look at and say: There’s no coming back from this.
Instead, all they can do is grit their teeth and wait for the next opportunity.
Biden had a mostly forceful response to a question about his strength as a candidate, although he called his running mate “Vice President Trump.” He coughed repeatedly but was clearer than during the debate. He touted the economy but said corporate prices were too high, as if he bears no blame for inflation.
That leaves Democrats in an awful mess. They can stand with Biden, worrying every day that the crucial collapse moment will come and it will be too late to fix. Or they can move to force his hand, a politically devastating mess that would leave the party in no better position than it is now, and perhaps even worse — bitterly divided against itself.
Plus, Democrats are confined to a miserable political Groundhog Day. Now that Washington reporters are (finally) fully engaged in the story of the president’s decline, they’re breaking stories about Biden going back years. And many of them turn on a paraphrase of that famous Watergate question: What did key Democrats know, and when did they know it?
On Thursday alone:
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CNN reported that internal White House meetings are subject to being “stage-managed,” going back years in Biden’s term. An unnamed source told the outlet that Cabinet members would be queried by staff in advance how they would respond to a question from the president so that Biden could be supplied with talking points. It’s “Weekend at Bernie’s: White House Edition.”
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Several people who attended a White House celebration of Juneteenth said they noticed odd behavior from the president, ABC News reported, with sources using words like “aloof,” “stiff,” and “garbled.” A Texas House member, Houston-area Democratic Rep. Ron Reynolds, told the network: “We didn’t know quite what to make of it, but we thought that it was different and that it was — he seemed altered.”
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The Biden campaign’s fundraising is drying up, NBC News reported, with one source saying the campaign might take in half as much in July as it did in June.
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A Wisconsin media company acknowledged that one of its radio stations edited an interview with Biden at the request of his campaign. That reflects more poorly on the station than the candidate, but it shows that even an exchange with a friendly outlet is perilous for the president.
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The Biden campaign is conducting polls to determine how well Vice President Kamala Harris would fare as the nominee against Trump, according to The New York Times. It’s a natural thing for the campaign to do, but the results will surely leak to the public.
If the poll shows Biden is the weaker candidate, it fuels calls for him to step down. If it shows Harris does worse, some Democrats will seethe that the campaign is deliberately running down the vice president, who may inherit the job anyway or be a future candidate.
The longer this goes on, the more likely that Democrats face a louder chorus of questions about the president’s fitness to remain in office right now, let alone seek four more years.
The more it appears that Biden is walled off from all but his most trusted relatives and aides, that information is predigested for him, that the work of the presidency is being done by others, the more other Democrats will suffer.
It’s increasingly clear that if Biden isn’t up for another term, he isn’t up for the tremendous daily drain of the presidency. If something catastrophic happens as a result, Democrats up and down the ballot will pay the price.
So, they need Biden to show in public that he’s truly done. The longer he muddles along, the worse it gets for his party.
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