NEWS ANALYSIS
Pelosi
and Others Try a New Tack With Biden: Is That Your Final Answer?
A defiant
and angry president says he is not going anywhere. Some Democrats are trying to
appeal to another side of the politician, who has been a realist about his
political fortunes before.
Katie Rogers
By Katie Rogers
Reporting from Washington
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/10/us/politics/pelosi-biden-democrats.html
July 10, 2024
Anger has not worked. Fear has not worked. Panic has not
worked. Bluntness has not worked. Sadness has not worked. Concern has not
worked.
Elected Democrats and donors have been all over the
emotional map this week as they scrutinize the state of President Biden’s
viability as a candidate against former President Donald J. Trump, trying
everything from directly pleading with him to drop out of the race to freaking
out in silence. All of it has only gotten Mr. Biden’s Irish up, as he would
say, igniting a stubbornness that is as key to his political brand as
resilience.
But on Wednesday, Representative Nancy Pelosi, the former
House speaker — and one of the few elected Democrats whose opinion the
president actually cares about — tried another tack: She telegraphed not panic
but respect, in hopes of appealing to the Joe Biden who has taken a breath and
stepped aside in the past — not the Joe Biden who is currently staring down his
party, daring Democrats to try to force him away from an office he spent
decades pursuing.
“He’s beloved, he is respected, and people want him to make
that decision, not me,” Ms. Pelosi said on “Morning Joe,” the president’s
favorite news show. “I want him to do whatever he decides to do, and that’s the
way it is.”
Ms. Pelosi’s comments, as delicately as they were delivered,
were still striking — and indeed stunned several White House officials who were
watching her on live television.
Mr. Biden had, after all, already said in a letter on Monday
that he was in his final presidential race to win it. Ms. Pelosi’s comments,
stressing that “time is running short” for him to make a final decision, made
it clear that the discussion was not over.
She signaled to the president, who watches “Morning Joe”
religiously and called into the program on Monday, that Democrats will have
more to say after he holds a high-stakes news conference at the NATO summit on
Thursday.
After her appearance, Ms. Pelosi tried to shut down any
suggestion that her interview was meant to push Mr. Biden aside. But her
initial comments showed she understands how Mr. Biden thinks.
Calls by congressional Democrats for him to step aside have
continued in recent days despite Mr. Biden’s attempted clampdown, including
from Peter Welch of Vermont on Wednesday, the first U.S. senator to make the
move.
“For the good of the country,” he wrote in an opinion essay
for The Washington Post, “I’m calling on President Biden to withdraw from the
race.”
The unrest in Congress, coupled with panic from Hollywood
donors who fear a Biden candidacy is a losing one, has made Mr. Biden angrier
over what he feels is disloyalty, according to people who have spoken recently
with him. (They, like several others interviewed for this article, spoke on the
condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations about the president.)
Those calls have fueled a sense of defiance and a feeling
that he is yet again being counted out, that he is the only person who can beat
Mr. Trump, and that he understands the true pulse of the Democratic Party over
the urging of well-heeled elites.
Mr. Biden’s most vocal supporters in the party, including
Senator John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, have reflected Mr. Biden’s view,
stressing that the president is the only person who has ever beaten Mr. Trump
and should therefore stay in the race. Mr. Biden also has the support of
lawmakers who are members of the influential Congressional Black Caucus.
Representative Steven Horsford, Democrat of Nevada, has called Mr. Biden “fit
to serve.”
In fact, Mr. Biden’s advisers have shrugged off many of the
loudest voices against him. Julián Castro? Dropped out of the presidential race
in January 2020. Senator Michael Bennet of Colorado? He ended his presidential
campaign a month later. David Axelrod? The “Pod Save America” bros? They were
President Obama’s aides, operatives who worked for a cerebral, cool-guy
president and never understood the world according to the scrappy kid from
Scranton.
“Joe Biden has been an extraordinary president,” Jon Lovett,
one of Mr. Obama’s former speechwriters — and a host of “Pod Save America” —
wrote on X on Wednesday. “Statesman. Hero.”
“But it’s hard to deny that in the two weeks since the
debate,” Mr. Lovett added, “it’s the arrogant and small Joe Biden we’ve seen
most — hanging on, bragging, defensive, angry, weak.”
Amid all that heat, Ms. Pelosi’s words seemed designed to
give Mr. Biden some air, and, perhaps, time to consult with the side of himself
that has struggled with when to fight and when to fold. She has seen him do
this before. She was first elected to Congress in 1987, the same year that Mr.
Biden decided to end his first run for the presidency after a plagiarism
scandal.
“There’s only one way to stop the sharks,” one of Mr.
Biden’s closest advisers, Ted Kaufman, told him at the time, “and that’s pull
out.” Mr. Biden did.
Ms. Pelosi was House minority leader when Mr. Biden, then
the vice president, stood in the White House Rose Garden next to Mr. Obama in
October 2015, months after his son Beau died. That day, he said, time had
simply run out. Mr. Obama’s embrace of Hillary Clinton as the anointed
Democratic nominee was also a factor in Mr. Biden’s exit from the race, another
rebuff that the Bidens and the people closest to them have not forgotten.
“Unfortunately, I believe we’re out of time,” Mr. Biden said
that day. “The time necessary to mount a winning campaign for the nomination.
But while I will not be a candidate, I will not be silent.”
Now, Ms. Pelosi is seen by people in regular contact with
the president as one of the few who could persuade him to step aside. So far,
she and all of those crucial lawmakers — a small group that includes Senator
Chuck Schumer of New York and Representative James E. Clyburn of South Carolina
— have so far held the line, buying him breathing room and offering public
support as the tide of Democratic panic rises.
“As I have made clear repeatedly publicly and privately, I
support President Biden and remain committed to ensuring Donald Trump is
defeated in November,” Mr. Schumer said on Wednesday.
Mr. Clyburn, too, punted Mr. Biden’s decision back to him on
Wednesday. “I have no idea,” Mr. Clyburn told reporters when asked whether he
thought Mr. Biden’s decision to remain in the race was final. “You’ll have to
ask him.”
In a story that has seemed to shift hour by hour, some other
Democratic lawmakers have appeared to follow Ms. Pelosi’s lead, focusing not on
the widespread anger or fear within their party but on Mr. Biden’s past
decisions to put his country first.
One appeal, from Senator Tim Kaine of Virginia, seemed to be
speaking directly to the version of Mr. Biden who has been a realist about his
political fortunes before.
“I have complete confidence that Joe Biden will do the
patriotic thing for the country,” Mr. Kaine said. “And he’s going to make that
decision. He’s never disappointed me. He’s always put patriotism and the
country ahead of himself, and I’m going to respect the decision he makes.”
The question now, some concerned allies of the president
said on Wednesday, is not which version of Mr. Biden hears the message, but
whether there are two versions of him still listening at all.
Katie Rogers is a White House correspondent. For much of the
past decade, she has focused on features about the presidency, the first
family, and life in Washington, in addition to covering a range of domestic and
foreign policy issues. She is the author of a book on first ladies. More about
Katie Rogers
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