
Almost two weeks after President Biden’s disastrous performance in his debate with presumptive Republican candidate Donald Trump, Democratic-elected officials, campaign strategists and donors continue to argue about Joe Biden’s future as the party’s standard bearer. Reacting to rising skepticism that Biden can defeat Trump, the White House rolled out a busy schedule of Biden appearances, designed to calm panicking party stalwarts.
After the Fourth of July holiday recess, Biden sent a letter to congressional Democrats which reiterated that he’s “firmly committed to staying in this race,” as he argued that any further questioning of his candidacy “only helps Trump and hurts us.”
In a New York Times editorial, Democratic presidential campaign veteran James Carville maintained that it’s inevitable that Joe Biden will soon be forced out of the 2024 presidential race, while urging that Bill Clinton and Barack Obama be recruited to facilitate the party’s decision on who will replace Biden.
Between The Lines’ Scott Harris spoke with Stewart Lawrence, a long-time Washington, D.C.-based policy consultant, widely published freelance journalist and columnist, who discusses the growing pressure on Biden to drop his candidacy and the urgent need for Democrats to take decisive action to replace Biden with someone capable of winning the November election, such as Vice President Kamala Harris.
STEWART LAWRENCE: It was pretty horrifying to see, no more than maybe three or four minutes into the debate. You know, Joe Biden started to slur and stumble and even having a significant brain freeze there. You know, I think it just crystallized though, for so many people who might not have been tuning in, what many people have actually known and seen for, you know, quite a long time.
And, you know, there’s now been quite a fru-f about how the media has been covering up Biden’s condition all these past months. So I’m not sure what they expected. You know, it was worse than anybody thought it would be. I think, you know, the bar was set pretty low and he didn’t even meet that.
So, but really, they should have expected something like this. I think, we’ve seen enough evidence of this already.
SCOTT HARRIS: Well, Stewart, as you look at the polls and, hearing from people across the country who have said for years now that they thought Joe Biden was too old to run again.
STEWART LAWRENCE: Right.
SCOTT HARRIS: Do you believe Joe Biden is still a viable candidate at this point in time?
STEWART LAWRENCE: No, I don’t. And I think, you know, in their heart and soul, most of the party at this point clearly doesn’t feel he’s viable either. But it’s a question of, you know, whether these Democrats are really going to step up and consolidate in their views. I think right now there’s something very dangerous almost happening.
There’s stalling in replacing him, the momentum to replace him, which was gathering force pretty strongly I think last week, is starting to stall a bit. And there’s been this kind of deceptive lull. And it’s deceptive because really, Trump has not been campaigning at all. He just sat back and watched the trainwreck, but he’s about to gear up in a major way.
And, a week from now is the convention, and he’s going to name a VP candidate, which is going to just draw everybody in the media over to the GOP side. And it’s going to create, I think, a very stark contrast between, you know, a unified GOP ticket, whatever you think of that ticket, but is very unified behind Trump and his VP candidate, who will be very well received on the one hand.
On the other hand, this very weak, disorganized, even still crumbling Democratic ticket with this King Lear-type figure who keeps howling in the winds about, you know, how he’s strong and is going to persevere. So I think we’re, set up for another panic attack on the Democratic side in about a week.
SCOTT HARRIS: Well, Stuart, what is the tipping point, do you think, for getting senators, especially that have enormous influence, more than anyone else in Washington, D.C. on Joe Biden? What’s it going to take for them to speak up publicly, or at least make a convincing argument privately to Joe Biden? Is it the fact that many elected officials are alarmed now that a losing Biden candidacy could drag them all down to defeat in November? Is that the key issue for them?
STEWART LAWRENCE: I think that in the donors, you know, I mean, if people want to shut off the spigot of funding, then, you know, you’re not going to have the wherewithal to work with. But the donors are kind of skittish also. I agree with you. I think the bottom line is what the people in the party, in the House, particularly — they really want to win back the House and they’re worried about losing the Senate, obviously, which might have happened anyway, to be honest.
Even before all this, because they have such a small lead and because, you know, 49 of those are pretty much committed to the GOP and the rest are toss-ups. Chances are Republicans were probably going to win. “Probably” wasn’t for sure. But now, yes, they’re very worried. But what you’re saying assumes you’re in a democratic party with a small “d”.
And what’s been revealed is we don’t have a grassroots democratic party. If we did, we wouldn’t be in this mess to begin with. So I don’t know what you can do if you have an absolutely recalcitrant incumbent. I don’t know what you do. Invent a medical emergency? Jim Carville just came out and basically appealed to Obama and Bill Clinton to organize kind of an intervention.
I highly doubt it’s going to happen. I highly doubt it’s going to happen. They keep pushing back the deadline when Joe has to leave. A lot of people said even last Friday, then they said this Monday. Now there are people that are nervous nellies, you know, say, well, you know, it has to happen by the middle of the month.
You know, it’s going to be too late. It’s going to be too late. I think we’re looking at a real catastrophe, because I think there’s going to be a real momentum shift to the GOP. Like I said, when Trump’s campaign gears up and they have their convention and they have a VP guy in there. I think the only thing is a plunge to Carteresque numbers that might really, really freak them out, in other words, low 30s in the polls.
But, you know, the way things are configured, right now with the polarization, I don’t think that’s going to happen. I think we’re looking at just a smaller margin and I think they have enough of a margin in the polls now and enough of a slippage to show that, well, this is unwinnable. I’m afraid they may just end up muddling through, to be honest with you.
I could see it happening because there’s no one figure who can coalesce this party. There’s no one figure who can do that.
SCOTT HARRIS: What is it that our listeners can do if they’re concerned about the future of democracy and another Trump presidency, and they want to see the Democrats succeed, or some pro-democracy party succeed? The question is, do we sit back and watch this happen or can we engage in some productive and effective way to change this status quo?
STEWART LAWRENCE: I think people need to speak out and stop succumbing to the fear and the hysteria that leads them to stay quiet and to say well, you know, what is the worst thing that could happen if Trump wins? You have to weigh the risks here of doing nothing or taking a chance. You know, I think people can really press their members of Congress and their senators to say, Hey, you know, it’s time for a change.
Let’s do it now. You know, the crisis was inevitable. It was going to happen. In some ways, it’s a gift that had happened now as opposed to later. So let’s act now instead of later.
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