By Katie Rogers
Anger has not worked. Fear has not worked. Panic has not worked. Bluntness has not worked. Sadness has not worked. Concern has not worked.
Elected Democrats and donors have been all over the emotional map this week as they scrutinize the state of President Joe Biden’s viability as a candidate against former President Donald Trump, trying everything from directly pleading with him to drop out of the race to freaking out in silence. All of it has only gotten Biden’s Irish up, as he would say, igniting a stubbornness that is as key to his political brand as resilience.
But on Wednesday, Rep. Nancy Pelosi, the former House speaker — and one of the few elected Democrats whose opinion the president actually cares about — tried another tack: She telegraphed not panic but respect, in hopes of appealing to the Joe Biden who has taken a breath and stepped aside in the past — not the Joe Biden who is staring down his party, daring Democrats to try to force him away from an office he spent decades pursuing.
“He’s beloved, he is respected, and people want him to make that decision, not me,” Pelosi said on “Morning Joe,” the president’s favorite news show. “I want him to do whatever he decides to do, and that’s the way it is.”
Pelosi’s comments, as delicately as they were delivered, were still striking — and indeed stunned several White House officials who were watching her on live television.
Biden had, after all, already said in a letter on Monday that he was in his final presidential race to win it. Pelosi’s comments, stressing that “time is running short” for him to make a final decision, made it clear that the discussion was not over.
She signaled to the president, who watches “Morning Joe” religiously and called into the program on Monday, that Democrats would have more to say after he held a high-stakes news conference at the NATO summit on Thursday.
After her appearance, Pelosi tried to shut down any suggestion that her interview was meantto push Biden aside. But her initial comments showed she understands how Biden thinks.
Calls by congressional Democrats for him to step aside have continued in recent days despite Biden’s attempted clampdown, including from Peter Welch of Vermont on Wednesday, the first U.S. senator to make the move.
“For the good of the country,” he wrote in an opinion essay for The Washington Post, “I’m calling on President Biden to withdraw from the race.”
The unrest in Congress, coupled with panic from Hollywood donors who fear a Biden candidacy is a losing one, has made Biden angrier over what he feels is disloyalty, according to people who have spoken recently with him. (They, like several others interviewed for this article, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations about the president.)
Those calls have fueled a sense of defiance and a feeling that he is yet again being counted out, that he is the only person who can beat Trump, and that he understands the true pulse of the Democratic Party over the urging of well-heeled elites.
Biden’s most vocal supporters in the party, including Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, have reflected Biden’s view, stressing that the president is the only person who has ever beaten Trump and should therefore stay in the race. Biden also has the support of lawmakers who are members of the influential Congressional Black Caucus. Rep. Steven Horsford, D-Nev., has called Biden “fit to serve.”
In fact, Biden’s advisers have shrugged off many of the loudest voices against him. Julián Castro? Dropped out of the presidential race in January 2020. Sen. Michael Bennet of Colorado? He ended his presidential campaign a month later. David Axelrod? The “Pod Save America” bros? They were President Barack Obama’s aides, operatives who worked for a cerebral, cool-guy president and never understood the world according to the scrappy kid from Scranton.
“Joe Biden has been an extraordinary president,” Jon Lovett, one of Obama’s former speechwriters — and a host of “Pod Save America” — wrote on the social platform X on Wednesday. “Statesman. Hero.”
“But it’s hard to deny that in the two weeks since the debate,” Lovett added, “it’s the arrogant and small Joe Biden we’ve seen most — hanging on, bragging, defensive, angry, weak.”
Amid all that heat, Pelosi’s words seemed designed to give Biden some air, and, perhaps, time to consult with the side of himself that has struggled with when to fight and when to fold. She has seen him do this before. She was first elected to Congress in 1987, the same year that Biden decided to end his first run for the presidency after a plagiarism scandal.
“There’s only one way to stop the sharks,” one of Biden’s closest advisers, Ted Kaufman, told him at the time, “and that’s pull out.” Biden did.
Now, Pelosi is seen by people in regular contact with the president as one of the few who could persuade him to step aside. So far, she and all of those crucial lawmakers — a small group that includes Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York and Rep. James E. Clyburn of South Carolina — have so far held the line, buying him breathing room and offering public support as the tide of Democratic panic rises.
“As I have made clear repeatedly publicly and privately, I support President Biden and remain committed to ensuring Donald Trump is defeated in November,” Schumer said Wednesday.
Clyburn, too, punted Biden’s decision back to him Wednesday: “I have no idea,” Clyburn told reporters when asked whether he thought Biden’s decision to remain in the race was final. “You’ll have to ask him.”
In a story that has seemed to shift hour by hour, some other Democratic lawmakers have appeared to follow Pelosi’s lead, focusing not on the widespread anger or fear within their party but on Biden’s past decisions to put his country first.
One appeal, from Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia, seemed to be speaking directly to the version of Biden who has been a realist about his political fortunes before.
“I have complete confidence that Joe Biden will do the patriotic thing for the country,” Kaine said. “And he’s going to make that decision. He’s never disappointed me. He’s always put patriotism and the country ahead of himself, and I’m going to respect the decision he makes.”
The question now, some concerned allies of the president said Wednesday, is not which version of Biden hears the message, but whether there are two versions of him still listening at all.
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