Even Trump Was Shocked by Biden’s Debate Performance

While Democratic donors and lawmakers peel away from President Joe Biden, at least one person desperately wants the incumbent to stay in the race: Donald Trump.

“We need to make sure Biden stays on the ballot and there’s no bait and switch,” a 2020 Trump staffer told Vanity Fair.

Trump was, himself, taken aback by Biden’s frailty during last week’s debate. One source that was briefed on Trump’s conversations after the event told the publication that the former president was “sad for America” and then “upset” by Biden’s mindless performance.

After spending months attempting to chop Biden down for his fragile health, a new, younger candidate opposing him at the top of the ticket would be the worst-case scenario for Trump. And some close to the presumptive GOP presidential nominee now believe that Trump walked straight into a trap by agreeing to partake in the earliest presidential debate in televised history, offering ample time for Democrats to find another option in case voters turned on Biden.

Several centrist governors are circulating in the conservative ecosphere as alternatives to Biden, including Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, and New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy. Vice President Kamala Harris is also being viewed as a credible option, with the 2020 staffer telling Vanity Fair that the Democratic Party wouldn’t be able to “sidestep her.”

But other Trump aides weren’t so sure that the Democratic effort to replace Biden on the ticket would prevail.

“They’re stuck with Biden,” a senior Trump campaign staffer told Vanity Fair.

President Joe Biden’s campaign is desperately trying to assure the American people that he won’t be dropping out of the race, and that includes staffers at the White House.

Biden’s campaign circulated an all-staff memo Wednesday morning that included internal polling that shows the president neck and neck with former President Donald Trump, ahead of a forthcoming poll from The New York Times/Siena College. According to the memo, the Times poll is expected to “show a slightly larger swing in the race” following Biden’s disastrous performance at the first presidential debate last week.

The campaign’s internal polling of battleground states found that Biden has only dropped half a percentage point since his lackluster debate performance, going from 43 percent to 42 percent, according to Politico, which received a copy of the memo. Meanwhile, the polling found that Trump only improved his advantage by 0.2 percent.

These results are markedly more optimistic for Biden than others. CBS released a poll Wednesday that found Trump had a three-point advantage in battleground states, and a two-point advantage nationally. A CNN poll released Tuesday found that most voters believe Democrats could improve their bid for the White House by backing a different candidate.

It’s worth noting, though, that the debate was expected to provide Biden a massive boost in popularity. So the fact that his performance has dropped, even by a tiny amount, is still a bad sign.

While the results of these polls have sent many Democrats running around like chickens with their heads cut off, the Biden campaign has insisted that they should keep calm and carry on.

“We are going to see a few polls come out today and we want you all to hear from us on what we know internally and what we expect to come externally,” said the memo. “Polls are a snapshot in time and we should all expect them to continue to fluctuate—it will take a few weeks, not a few days, to get a full picture of the race.”

As shortsighted as it is to change one’s tune over the results of a couple of polls, the criticisms of Biden postdebate don’t seem to be going anywhere just yet, If anything, the search for a new candidate only appears to be growing in strength, with Democratic leaders offering to back Vice President Kamala Harris should Biden choose to withdraw.

Maintaining business as usual is a particularly difficult message to sell given that Biden has reportedly said he is weighing whether to drop out, reports which the White House has been quick to deny. As tensions rise within the Democratic Party, calming nerves and quelling dissent may go hand in hand for Biden’s inner circle, who have been accused of shielding him from calls to withdraw.

Biden told an unnamed key ally that he knows his campaign is on its last leg if he can’t convince the American public that he’s up for the job following his disastrous debate performance last Thursday, according to The New York Times. The details of the story have been largely overlooked as the White House fumes over the Times’ quickly spreading headline: “Biden Told Ally That He Is Weighing Whether to Continue in the Race.”

Andrew Bates, a spokesperson for the Biden campaign, rejected the Times’ headline, calling it “absolutely false.” Bates did not comment on the content of the article detailing the president’s understanding that he needs to prove his debate performance was an anomaly this week.

The report seems to be the first indication that Biden understands the stakes here. Publicly, the campaign has insisted that concerns over his debate performance are nothing more than misplaced anxiety from “the bedwetting brigade.”

“He knows if he has two more events like that, we’re in a different place,” the unnamed ally told The New York Times on the condition of anonymity on Wednesday, citing upcoming Biden appearances ahead of the Fourth of July holiday weekend that, according to the Times, “must go well.”

Biden is slated to participate in campaign stops in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin as well as an interview on Friday with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos. Fallout from his debate performance has been prolific. In a private call with Democratic donors on Wednesday revealed by Semafor, discussions swirled around what would need to be done to push Biden to leave the race and the uphill battle to find a suitable replacement.

Dmitri Mehlhorn, adviser to LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman, attempted to defend Biden remaining in the race by arguing that Kamala Harris is less popular than a “dead” or “comatose” Biden.

“Kamala Harris is more threatening to those swing voters than a dead Joe Biden or a comatose Joe Biden,” one Democratic donor said on the call. “So if Joe has to go, it’s gonna be Kamala and if it’s Kamala, it’s gonna be harder.”

A CBS poll conducted after the first presidential debate found an astonishing 72 percent of voters don’t think Biden has the mental and cognitive health to serve as president. Following the debate, the razor-thin margins between Biden and Trump widened slightly, with Trump leading Biden by 41 to 38 percent, according to polling from USA Today/Suffolk University, and 41.8 to 40.4 percent, according to 538. A CNN poll published Tuesday found an eye-popping 75 percent of voters think Democrats have a better chance of retaining the White House if Biden isn’t the nominee. That’s a lot of bedwetters.

Despite the Supreme Court giving Donald Trump near-absolute immunity and the rest of his trials certain to continue after Election Day, the Department of Justice doesn’t plan to back down in its cases against the former president and convicted felon.

A new report from The Washington Post, citing sources close to the department, said that prosecutors plan to pursue cases with a deadline of Inauguration Day in January, in keeping with the Supreme Court’s ruling that a sitting president can’t be prosecuted.

“The Justice Department isn’t governed by the election calendar. Its prosecution of Trump is based on the law, the facts and the Justice Manual—the department’s bible that lays out the post-Watergate norms that have prevented it from being weaponized,” Anthony Coley, a spokesperson for Attorney General Merrick Garland until last year, told the Post.

“Until those norms change, or they’re ordered otherwise, I’d expect this Justice Department to be full speed ahead. And they should be,” Coley added.

The Supreme Court’s ruling also placed restrictions on what kind of evidence could be collected from a presidential administration, dealing heavy blows to the federal election interference case against Trump. That change alone will add more delays to the D.C. trial, which was already pushed back thanks to the Supreme Court case on presidential immunity. If Trump wins reelection, his lawyers will very likely ask federal judges to drop the case.

Trump’s other federal case involves his alleged mishandling of classified documents in Florida, where he has a friendly judge who has bogged down the case with a myriad of seemingly irrelevant hearings. Even the one guilty verdict against Trump, his hush-money case in New York, has had its sentencing hearing postponed, with the judge giving an ominous warning about the case’s fate. Trump’s election interference case in Georgia is still in limbo too.

While the DOJ’s reported intentions suggest that it will press for consequences for Trump, the fact of the matter is that thanks to the Supreme Court, Trump may evade any consequences altogether.

President Joe Biden’s performance in last week’s debate has sent the Democratic Party into a tailspin, pushing some party members to debate whether Vice President Kamala Harris would be a better replacement for a “comatose” or “dead” Biden.

This week has seen a series of calls between donors, party members, and consultants on how to push Biden out of the 2024 race as support for the incumbent president dramatically wanes in light of his age and frailty.

In a conference call featuring dozens of Democratic SuperPAC American Bridge donors held early Wednesday, former Clinton aide James Carville urged donors to consider an alternative to Biden, and said that donors who want Biden to exit the race should consider cutting off their funds from lawmakers who don’t agree with them, reported Semafor.

“Seventy-two percent of people want something different. Why not give it to them?” Carville said, according to a recording of the call obtained by Semafor. “They’re just asking for a different choice.”

In another call on Tuesday, panic rose among a bevy of Democratic donors, several of whom emphasized that keeping Biden at the top of the ticket would only encourage more Americans to vote for Donald Trump.

“What can we as donors do to encourage the change in the ticket?” asked one donor.

“If you wake Joe Biden at three o’ clock in the morning and ask him who’s president, does he get it right?” worried another.

But not everyone on the call was in agreement. Dmitri Mehlhorn, an adviser to entrepreneur and LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman, told donors to stick with Biden, since, despite his health issues, he’s still the more popular choice compared to the next obvious option.

“Kamala Harris is more threatening to those swing voters than a dead Joe Biden or a comatose Joe Biden,” Mehlhorn said. “So if Joe has to go, it’s gonna be Kamala, and if it’s Kamala, it’s gonna be harder.”

If there’s one silver lining to Biden’s devastating performance, per Carville, it’s that the symptom was caught early.

“Maybe we look back on this thing and say, ‘This is the best thing that ever happened to us,’” Carville said, according to Semafor. “If this would have happened to us on October fifth, we’d be more than bruised, screwed, and tattooed. Maybe this will set it into motion something different.”

“And maybe the people on the Zoom call, or maybe we’ll reconvene and I told November tenth and say, ‘God damn man, this thing came together a lot better than we ever thought we would back on July the second,” he added.