Biden's Insular Inner Circle Contributed to Long Delay in Dropping Re-election Bid

A new book, to be released soon, sheds light on the tight inner circle of former President Joseph R. Biden Jr.'s staff, which severely limited access to him after his disastrous debate performance with Donald J. Trump in June 2024. The insularity became a defining feature of the final stages of Mr. Biden's political career, making it difficult for even some of his longtime friends and allies in Congress to reach him. This close control was exacerbated by the fear of criticism and pressure from outside voices, which ultimately hindered the president's ability to confront the reality of his faltering campaign.

Key Takeaways:

• The Biden campaign's pollsters were not given access to internal campaign analytics, making it difficult for them to present an accurate picture of the campaign's standing.
• Despite having a team of pollsters, the campaign presented overly optimistic outlooks of the political landscape, alarming members of the campaign staff who looked for ways to bypass Joe Biden's longtime advisers Steve Ricchetti and Mike Donilon.
• The president's aides were fearful of criticism and pressure from outside voices, leading them to provide him with a warped version of reality, making it difficult for him to receive honest information about his campaign's prospects.
• Representative Pete Aguilar of California, a top House Democrat, called Steve Ricchetti to express the desperation in the party, but Ricchetti reassured him that many members of Congress still supported the president.
• Adrienne Elrod, a Biden campaign adviser, suspected that the president was not getting a complete picture of how dire the situation was, and she went to two people she knew could get his attention: the hosts of "Morning Joe" on MSNBC.
• The hosts of "Morning Joe" conveyed the frustrations inside the campaign when Joe Scarborough said, "The anger that I hear is not at Joe Biden. The anger I hear are the people who are keeping him in a bubble."
• Mr. Biden's closest aides maintain a different view, arguing that he should have never given into pressure and abandoned his re-election campaign, saying, "It was an act of insanity by the Democratic leadership."

Statistics:

• After the debate, Mr. Biden trailed Mr. Trump in all of the battleground states, as well as in reliably Democratic states like Virginia, Minnesota, and New Mexico.
• The pollsters found that Mr. Biden was just not able to persuade voters that he was up for the job.
• The president had no path to victory.
• 81 million votes for Mr. Biden in the 2024 election

Sources:

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• The New York Times, June 2024
• RealClearPolitics, aggregator of public polls
• "Morning Joe" on MSNBC
• The Wall Street Journal, written by Josh Dawsey
• The Washington Post, written by Isaac Arnsdorf