New Barack Obama revelation foments suspicions the former president is quietly working to oust Joe Biden
A new revelation about former president Barack Obama has fomented fears he’s quietly working to oust Joe Biden.
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Former US president Barack Obama has been accused of quietly “orchestrating” efforts, behind the scenes, to convince Joe Biden to quit his country’s presidential race.
It has emerged that Mr Obama, who was president from 2009-2017, knew high profile actor George Clooney was writing an opinion piece for The New York Times, calling for Mr Biden to step down, before it was published on Wednesday.
“We are not going to win in November with this president,” Mr Clooney wrote in the piece, adding that Democrats would be “praying for a miracle” if Mr Biden remained their candidate for the general election against Donald Trump.
Mr Clooney, a prolific donor to the Democratic Party, said the Joe Biden he encountered at a recent fundraiser in Los Angeles was “the same man we all witnessed” in last month’s debate with Mr Trump. The President’s abysmal performance in the debate, and apparent inability to form coherent arguments, reinforced existing concerns about his advanced age and created a sense of panic among Democrats.
Mr Biden has spent the weeks since trying to quell suggestions that he should step aside.
On Thursday morning, US time, Politico reported that Mr Clooney had reached out to Mr Obama before publishing his op-ed, and while the former president “did not encourage” him to go forward with it, he “didn’t object” either.
“Before Hollywood icon and Democratic donor George Clooney published his buzzy and brutal New York Times op-ed yesterday calling on Biden to step aside as the nominee, we’re told he reached out to former president Barack Obama to give him a heads-up,” Politico reported in its daily Playbook newsletter.
“The two men, who are friendly, both attended the Los Angeles fundraiser Clooney referenced in his piece, where the actor said he’d beheld a diminished Biden and the leader he interacted with was ‘the same man we all witnessed at the debate’.
“While Obama did not encourage or advise Clooney to say what he said, he also didn’t object to it, we’re told from people familiar with their exchange.
“The lack of pushback is an eye-popping revelation, given the former president was one of the first big voices defending Biden following his abysmal debate performance.”
Mr Obama’s media team declined to comment on the report.
The former president was last seen out and about in public on Wednesday night, appearing unworried as he attended a basketball game in Las Vegas.
Long-running tensions
Politico went on to point out that several of Mr Obama’s former White House staffers have been among the loudest voices calling for Mr Biden to withdraw.
And last weekend the former president’s chief political strategist, David Axelrod, publicly warned that Mr Biden was on course for a “landslide defeat” to Mr Trump.
“Denial. Delusion. Defiance,” Mr Axelrod wrote of the President in an op-ed for CNN.
“The stakes (in this election) are as great as Biden describes. And if he believes it, as I think he does, he will eventually do what duty and love of country requires, and step aside.
“If he does not, it will be Biden’s age, and not Trump’s moral and ethical void, that will dominate the rest of this campaign and sully the President’s historic legacy.”
He said Mr Biden’s debate performance was “so devastating” because it fed into the chief attack line against him: that “an aged Biden is not in control”.
There have been reports of underlying tensions between the Bidens and Obamas since Mr Biden’s tenure as vice president.
On Thursday’s edition of MSNBC’s Morning Joe, known to be Mr Biden’s favourite morning news program, host Joe Scarborough revealed the Biden campaign’s suspicion that Mr Obama has had a hand in the push to oust him.
“What’s going on behind the scenes is: the Biden campaign and many Democratic officials do believe that Barack Obama is quietly working behind the scenes to orchestrate this,” said the former congressman turned TV host, who is friends with the President.
“Joe Biden is deeply resentful of his treatment not only under the Obama staff, but also the way he was pushed aside for Hillary Clinton. He’s deeply resentful of those trying to shove him out of the way.
“He’s always felt like an outsider, always felt like people have looked down on him.”
Ms Clinton was the Democratic presidential nominee in 2016, for the election that delivered Mr Trump his first term in the White House.
Mr Biden decided not to seek the nomination that year, leaving Ms Clinton to face a relatively weak field in the party’s primaries. Her chief opponent was left-wing senator Bernie Sanders.
‘He cannot win’
In his brutal op-ed on Wednesday, Mr Clooney stressed that he “loves” Mr Biden.
“I consider him a friend, and I believe in him. Believe in his character. Believe in his morals. But the one battle he cannot win is the fight against time,” the actor wrote.
“It’s devastating to say it, but the Joe Biden I was with three weeks ago at the fundraiser was not the Joe ‘big f***ing deal’ Biden of 2010. He wasn’t even the Joe Biden of 2020. He was the same man we all witnessed at the debate.”
He said Democrats “need to stop telling us that 51 million people didn’t see what we just saw” during the debate.
“We are not going to win in November with this president,” said Mr Clooney.
“This isn’t only my opinion; this is the opinion of every senator and Congress member and governor that I’ve spoken with in private. Every single one, irrespective of what he or she is saying publicly.”
In his own public remarks, Mr Obama has betrayed none of the uncertainty about Mr Biden’s candidacy that he’s reported to be feeling in private.
“Bad debate nights happen,” he said in a statement the day after the debate.
“Trust me. I know. But this election is still a choice between someone who has fought for ordinary folks his entire life and someone who only cares about himself. Between someone who tells the truth, who knows right from wrong and will give it to the American people straight, and someone who lies through his teeth for his own benefit.
“Last night didn’t change that, and it’s why so much is at stake in November.”
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