U.S. President Joe Biden called Vice President Kamala Harris on Sunday to tell her directly.
He spoke one-on-one with Jeff Zients, his White House chief of staff, and Jen O’Malley Dillon, his campaign chair.
Zients then convened Biden’s White House and campaign senior staff for a 1:45 p.m. call, so that Biden could tell those who had worked closest with him he was abandoning his dream of a second term.
As Biden spoke on that call, a letter announcing his intentions went live online. The chief of staff followed up with Zoom calls for the Cabinet and those in the White House with the rank of assistant to the president.
“There is so much more to do – and as President Biden says, ‘there is nothing America can’t do – when we do it together,’” Zients wrote the entire White House team at 2:26 p.m.
There were mutterings that it was coming. But until it was done, many of the people who work for the campaign and the White House only assumed something had to happen – some pivot, some admission of reality – but they did not know what, when or how. The map was expanding in the wrong direction. The party had turned. The money was drying up. The polls in must-win states had gone from bad to worse.
This story is based on interviews with more than a dozen Democratic insiders from the campaign, the White House and Capitol Hill, many of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private conversations.
Biden huddled through the weekend with a small crew of family and advisers in Rehoboth Beach, Del.: White House counselor Steve Ricchetti, senior campaign adviser Mike Donilon, deputy chief of staff Annie Tomasini and senior adviser to the first lady Anthony Bernal, all of whom were at the president’s vacation house.
Everyone else plowed forward, swearing publicly that none of that was happening, telling those that worked for them to not stop. O’Malley Dillon had laid down that marker Friday, when she went on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” and abruptly silenced the growing speculation that his exit was imminent. The feedback from door-knocks by campaign workers was good, she said. The campaign was humming. The president was determined.
“He’s not going anywhere,” she said.
That was followed by a tense high-dollar donor call Friday afternoon that left many of the party’s top money people fuming. Calling from the road, Harris joined the Zoom late for just a few minutes – boasted of the campaign’s efforts in Michigan and Wisconsin, expressed confidence in victory and then signed off, according to a person on the call. All the donor questions were left unasked and unanswered.
Donors left frustrated because “it was like we didn’t have eyes and couldn’t see what was going on,” another person on the call said.
It was a bold and definitive posture. Yet it was read by many inside the Democratic political world less as a final word, more like an extension of respect that the president was owed. This decision was always Biden’s to make. From the earliest days of the crisis, people close to Biden would contact those who went public with their dismay.
He deserved “grace,” was their message. Give him his space.
That created weeks of mixed signals, amid clearly deteriorating conditions. Ricchetti and Donilon were both full-steam ahead during the Republican convention all the way through Friday, said one person familiar with the conversations. Ricchetti got to the house Friday. Donilon arrived Saturday. They met Saturday evening, according to another person familiar with the events. Inside the campaign, the polls late last week had deteriorated further. The president, suffering from covid, was briefed on the data.
“The poll numbers they got recently were very sobering for them,” this person said. “They wanted to stop the bleeding, to give him time to think about what he wants to say. … It was so relentless. Every day it was a new person.”
The campaign continued to plan new trips and fundraisers for Biden on Saturday. A fundraising email for the Biden-Harris ticket was emailed out Sunday even after Biden had published his letter announcing his decision.
In fact, Biden had all but made up his mind Saturday night, said the person briefed on the events. He then went to bed. When he awoke, he did one more gut check before moving forward.
Biden made his decision feeling certain that he did not have a viable path forward. But he remained upset at Democratic lawmakers and party strategists who had begun to publicly come forward to push him out.
A member of Congress said that Biden is “deeply betrayed and upset” at all the people he thought were friends. The member said Biden had been receptive to arguments about polling and his legacy, but it took him some time, and that most staff were not in the loop.
Among much of the senior campaign leadership, the harsh reality had long ago been accepted. But people continued to speak on his behalf, routinely denouncing the anonymous sources describing what was happening.
A congresswoman said Biden had “honest talks” with his team this weekend about the polling, which was seemingly getting worse by the day. Democrats on Capitol Hill were also restless. Dozens of lawmakers had held off on going public, both out of respect for the president and in fear of the political risks of doing so. But many were discussing the best way to come forward in the coming week if Biden did not exit the race by the weekend, according to several people familiar with the discussions.
They were not, however, willing to bend to his will. Democrats in the Senate – where Biden served for 36 years – were being especially careful but had begun discussing whether to come out as a group or one after another, to arrange a number of senators to meet with Biden privately and urge him to exit or else warn that they would go public if he did not respond to their concerns, according to the people.
A number of his aides said on Sunday they were upset by being kept in the dark, having been told Friday and Saturday to keep fighting for his candidacy. Some were even working on Sunday morning, preparing for the morning shows, and heading back to Wilmington for the week.
As of Sunday afternoon, it was still unclear when exactly Biden would address the nation directly. He was still suffering from covid symptoms, including a hoarse voice, said one person familiar with the situation, and they suspected Biden and his team would wait until he sounded better for any public remarks.
Among Democratic lawmakers, there is disagreement about the best path forward. Biden’s endorsement of Harris is likely to stymie discussion over whether another candidate would be better positioned to beat Trump. But before his endorsement, many lawmakers had concerns over Harris’s ability to take on Trump – in part because of mixed internal polling data, according to two Democratic senators – and were interested in exploring the possibility of an open convention.
Others in Biden’s inner circle believe there is no option, no time to restart and restaff a campaign, which Harris will likely be able to inherit directly barring some legal challenges. One donor said there would be a push for an open process, and that Biden’s announcement of his endorsement of Harris had been a letdown.
“People were thrilled for that brief period between the first Biden announcement and the second,” this person said.
But that was tomorrow’s worry. Enough had already changed.
“I need a drink,” one campaign staffer wrote in a text message, just after 2 p.m.