Via Ed Morrissey at Hot Air: Is Biden threatening other Democrats with Mutually Assured Destruction if they don't fall in line?
President Biden hasn't made much progress convincing Democrats he's still equipped to take on Donald Trump since their debate. But he's made headway on another front: Making clear he will take the entire party down with him if they don't stop trying to replace him.
In a letter to Congress on Monday, just as members were arriving for the first time since the debate to potentially share their grievances, Biden warned: "The question of how to move forward has been well-aired for over a week now. And it's time for it to end."
In a phone interview on Morning Joe around the same time, he denounced the "elites" who he accused of trying to push him out -- his most combative language yet.
"If any of these guys think I shouldn't run, run against me -- go ahead, announce for president," he said. "Challenge me at the convention."
The message coming from the White House is clear: Biden isn't going anywhere, and if you come after him you'll be the one who gets blamed for undermining the party's general election chances.
A presidential candidate rallying supporters to stop party "elites" from trying to oust him is a familiar scene -- if you've followed Donald Trump's career.
The article goes into a Muh Trump digression, noting that Trump has threatened to run as an independent if he wasn't given the nomination.
...
What Biden can do is be stubborn in a way that sets up a scenario of mutually assured destruction for Democrats. So long as opponents of his nomination believe it's impossible to force him to step aside, any escalation of their criticism risks damaging him even further in November. And the worse his standing gets, the more his party is likely to suffer up and down the ballot.
Democrats don't sound entirely ready to believe him -- for now....
It's not a very appetizing prospect. If Biden really is willing to fight a Democratic civil war, it would mean heading into convention season with key chunks of the party on the record with doubts about their nominee and pro-Biden factions accusing them of sabotage, all while Republicans quietly sit back and munch popcorn. Biden has been working hard to line up support from Black Democrats and labor -- Congressional Black Caucus Chair Steven Horsford backed Biden Monday -- setting up a potentially uncomfortable race and class dynamic to the fight as well.
Kevin McCarthy decided to be useful -- years too late.
Steve Ferguson
@lsferguson
Kevin McCarthy just disclosed Jill Biden was in meetings with him while he was Speaker. This is chilling
So Biden needs his mommywife nurse with him during meetings.
No wonder she is determined that Biden remain in office -- she's the illegal acting president.
Soothsayer speculated that Jill Biden might be angling to replace Biden on the ticket. With herself.
Hooboy, can you even imagine? America would be run by a real real-life doctor!!! I'm so happy for us.
The Semafor article quotes a Democrat House member, Ritchie Torres, who points out the obvious: If you keep calling Biden unfit for office and he doesn't step aside, you've guaranteed he will lose.
But many Democrats already think he's guaranteed to lose, or almost guaranteed.
And they have reason to believe that. Democrats leaked their own internal polling to show how badly Biden is doing. In the leaked poll, Biden is losing every single swing state and some non-swing states, too.
I mentioned earlier that an AARP poll has Trump wining Wisconsin.
By seven points.
Former President Donald Trump leads President Joe Biden by 7 points among voters 50 and over in the key battleground state of Wisconsin, according to a poll released Tuesday by the American Association of Retired Persons.
With voters 50 and over in Wisconsin, Trump leads Biden 48% to 41%. Trump leads by 15 points among those in the 50-64 age range, while the candidates are tied at 45% each when taken from those voters aged 65 and over. Women overall favor Biden by 8 points while men 18 and over prefer Trump by 22 points.
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The importance of the poll was not lost on longtime political experts. Commenting on the Wisconsin survey, Ronald Brownstein, senior editor of The Atlantic and a CNN political analyst, called the findings a "brutal poll" in the "best of the blue wall states." Jacob Rubashkin, deputy editor of Inside Elections, called the survey "bleak" for Biden.
Gen X is Best Gen.
Biden claims that the polls always misunderestimate him.
CNN's poll analyst Harry Enten explains that that claim is completely false. The polls have consistently underestimated Trump's actual levels of support, not Biden's. Polls have consistently overestimated not just Biden's level of support, but every single Democrat's level of support going back to the 2004 Bush-Kerry race.
He stresses that no Republican has led the national polling in July in 20 years.
ENTEN: We talk about the presidential race. Last time around, Donald Trump actually did better in the results than his July polls by five points. You go back to 2016. You see something very similar. That is the July polls actually underestimated Donald Trump. He outperformed his July polls. So, the idea in the Trump era that the polls have underestimated Democrats, whether it be in a Joe Biden matchup, whether it be a matchup against Hillary Clinton, whether it be in the midterms, at least in the national polling that right now shows Donald Trump in the strongest position, simply put, is not true. ...
So, let's go all the way back. Who lead in early July polls? Well, right now, Donald Trump is ahead. Go back in 2020, a Democrat, Biden. In 2016, Hillary Clinton, a Democrat. 2008, 2012, a Democrat. Even in 2004, where George W. Bush ended up winning, John Kerry was actually ahead in the polls at this point. You have to go all the way back to 2000, to George W. Bush being ahead in the early July polls, you have to go all the way back to the end of the 20th century, beginning of the 21st century, to find a Republican ahead at this. Twenty-four years. At this particular point, the idea that a Democrat is ahead, there are voters in the electric who are dealing with a poll position they have never seen before. And that is a Republican leading in the national popular vote, at least according to the polls.
You have to hand it to @ForecasterEnten - his brutal and honest assessments are very profound on CNN. He tells it like it is. pic.twitter.com/F873apWPRx
— Justin Hart (@justin_hart) July 8, 2024
Doctor President Jill Biden snapped at reporters for impertinently asking questions:
As someone pointed out: Democrats are so accustomed to fawning, protective, promotional "press coverage" that they just absolutely lose it the moment a "journalist" asks them a question they haven't pre-screened and pre-approved.