Members of Joe BidenJoe Biden’s family privately savaged his top campaign advisers at Camp David over the weekend, blaming them for the president’s failure in Thursday’s debate and urging Biden to fire or demote people in his political top command.
Biden is not immediately expected to follow that advice, according to three people briefed on the family conversations but not directly involved. All three spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the matter.
Among the family’s complaints about debate practice: Biden wasn’t willing to pivot more to attack; he was too busy defending his record rather than laying out a vision for a second term; and he was overworked and under-rested.
Blame was largely placed on staffers, including: Anita Dunn, the senior adviser who often has the president’s ear; her husband, Bob Bauer, the president’s lawyer who played Asset in rehearsals at Camp David; And Ron Klainthe former chief of staff who led the preparation of the debates and the sessions of previous cycles.
“The advisers who prepared the president have been with him for years, often decades, through his victories and his challenges. He has great confidence in them,” Biden campaign spokesman Kevin Munoz said in a statement.
A senior Biden adviser also reacted, saying it was “not true” that the frustration was directed at Dunn, Bauer and Klain.
Biden’s allies and staffers have sought to blame various factors following Biden’s dismal debate performance, including that the president was ill, overprepared and that CNN moderators had failed to fact-checking former President Donald Trump. But as the crisis has continued for a third day, the accusations have turned to some of Biden’s closest advisers.
However, the focus on the personal has also allowed the family to overlook Biden’s own failures in Atlanta, one of the people close to him noted.
These people said the Biden family wanted the president to continue his campaign rather than end his career with a disastrous debate performance against Trump, whom they all hate. Jill Biden and his son Hunter Biden were the loudest voices urging the president to stay in the race for the 2024 election.
The Biden family also expected to meet to discuss how best to reassure Democrats that staying in the race is the right decision. The president himself was calling to find out what his confidants were thinking. As Biden boarded Air Force One on Saturday, he spoke on the phone with Jon Meacham, according to caller ID photographs.
Additionally, Biden’s campaign team has only increased its anger with CNN over the way the debate was conducted, according to several people with knowledge of the conversations. Their complaints were numerous, including that moderators should have fact-checked Trump more often, that Biden was not told what camera he would be on when he wasn’t speaking, and that the makeup team made him look too pale, according to the three people. Biden, however, agreed to the terms of the debate before it took place.
Since the debate, Biden’s family has publicly and privately rallied behind him. His granddaughters Finnegan and Natalie Biden traveled with the president and first lady for a list of fundraising events Saturday in New York and New Jersey. Although the family had long planned to spend the weekend together at Camp David to take a family portrait with photographer Annie Leibovitz, the gathering offered them a chance to sit down together in the days following what is shaping up to be a low point in the president’s decades-long political career.
Even before Biden left the debate stage Thursday night, he was already facing heavy criticism from members of his own party over his rocky performance, with some suggesting that He failed to adequately compete with Trump and his performance exposed long-standing concerns that he is too old to campaign and lead the nation. His raspy voice, drawn-out responses and deflated stage presence during the 90-minute debate sparked panic among major Democratic donors and strategists about the viability of his candidacy and opened a debate over whether he should be replaced at the top of the ticket.
He did better in subsequent days with better performances at a rally and fundraisers – but these, unlike the debate, allowed him to use teleprompters.
Biden acknowledged that the debate did not go well. election rally On Friday, he said, “I don’t debate as well as I used to,” but stressed that he “wouldn’t run again if I didn’t believe with all my heart and soul that I can do this work “.
Since launching his re-election campaign, Biden has struggled to allay concerns about his age. Polls have consistently shown that many voters – including his own supporters – think he is too old to effectively serve a second term. Even though Trump is only three years younger, voters are far less likely to cite the former president’s age as a problem.
Biden’s performance in the debate will likely make the age issue an even bigger obstacle in the months to come. A CBS News/YouGov Poll A survey released Sunday showed that 72% of registered voters don’t think Biden has the mental and cognitive health to serve as president, up from 65% earlier this month. His party is divided on whether he should run for president, with 46% of registered Democratic voters saying he should not, compared to 54% who think he should.
Biden often consults his family on big decisions, and those close to him say the only way he would reach the conclusion to drop out of the race would be if the first lady and his family members encouraged him to do so.
At a Greenwich Village fundraiser Friday night, the first lady said that after the debate, the president came up to her and said, “Jill, I don’t know what happened.” I didn’t feel very well.
“And I said, ‘Look, Joe, we’re not going to let 90 minutes define the four years that you were president,'” the first lady said, according to reporters in the room.
