The Full Belmonte, 6/30/2024
What scares Democrats most
The Bidens arrive in East Hampton, N.Y., yesterday for campaign events. Photo/Evan Vucci/AP
“It's not just Joe Biden's age. It's not just his debate debacle, which made the president look slow, old, foggy. It's what's next that truly worries even Biden's biggest supporters, Mike Allen and Jim VandeHei write in a Behind the Curtain column.
These Democrats fear that if three years as president took this much of a toll, Biden could look, act, sound and feel a lot worse at 86, after five more years. And Democrats would be devastated if Donald Trump won because voters concluded Biden's time has passed.
Why it matters: Top Democrats worry Biden's situation hits too close to home for too many to ignore. Most people have watched a loved one decline — at first slowly, then dramatically — as they hit their mid-80s. These Democrats fear the party, not just Biden, would pay for ignoring this.
A Democratic official talked us through the gentle approach to getting Biden to end his run on his terms. This official, who demanded anonymity for self-evident reasons, said Biden's sister, Valerie Biden, and longtime friend, Ted Kaufman, should make this case to the president:
‘This is not about him submitting to the will of others yelling at him that he failed. Joe Biden is too proud for that argument. He will not be dragged off the stage,’ said the official, who is outside the White House and campaign.
‘The goal is to let him walk off the stage. He came; he saw; he conquered. He wanted to get rid of Trump for the country; he wanted to prepare America for the future; and he wanted to help nurture the next generation to be a transitional president.’
‘He can say to himself, in all honesty: All three have now been accomplished,’ the strategist continued. ‘He got rid of Trump; helped prepare America through his legislation for the future; and, under his tenure, a generation of new Democrats have emerged.’
‘You've got to give him the dignity to walk off on his own. The idea that it would happen in the immediate aftermath is clueless.’
We can't stress enough how many Democrats, including top congressional leaders and longtime Biden friends, are pushing for this conversation to happen this weekend.
Lauren Hitt, senior spokesperson for the Biden campaign, told us: ‘The president is absolutely not dropping out.’
Behind the scenes: Some Biden insiders think the debate disaster was more of a voice issue than an age issue.
‘We did practices at night, but we cut all practices short to save his failing voice,’ a source familiar with Biden's debate prep at Camp David told us. ‘The voice was a concern all week.’
Between the lines: Two things can be and are true at once. Biden, in public and private settings, is usually lucid, deeply engaged and fully capable. That's the consensus view, even of Democrats who think he shouldn't have run again because of his age.
At the same time, they see what America saw in Atlanta on Thursday night: a president who can seem foggy, episodically confused, prone to tripping over words, or losing a thought mid-sentence.
White House deputy press secretary Andrew Bates said: ‘Not only does the President perform around the clock, but he maintains a schedule that tires younger aides, including foreign trips into active war zones, and he proves he has that capacity by delivering tangible results that pundits had declared impossible.’” [Axios]
Camp David conversation
Cover: TIME
“Democrats tell us privately that there's a perceptible increase in the number of times today, versus three years ago, where the signs of old age show. Hence their concern that this will only get worse, Mike and Jim write.
Yes, Trump is almost as old (78 vs. Biden's 81) — and often says weird, confusing, just plain wrong things in public settings.
But polls show age is less of an issue for him, partly because his voters love the hyperbole and histrionics.
The other side: When asked for comment, the White House and the Biden campaign each offered an official to talk on the record about how the president's debate performance doesn't tell the full story.
1. Brett McGurk, White House coordinator for the Middle East and North Africa, has worked closely with the past four presidents. He's constantly in the Situation Room with Biden, and gets the president's comments and questions back from his nightly prep packet.
‘If what is being written now about President Biden were true, history would be very different,’ McGurk told us in a half-hour phone interview. He said Biden's ‘strategic empathy,’ wisdom, experience and familiarity with the globe from his years as chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee are ‘an incredible national asset.’”
McGurk has seen Biden direct real-time operations for up to five hours at a stretch. And after the terrorist attack on Israel on Oct. 7, McGurk was there for a conversation with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, when Biden was ‘reasoning in a Socratic way and talking them off the ledge.’
Meeting with special forces commanders in 2022 before the U.S. killing of Hajji Abdullah, the global leader of ISIS, Biden offered a prescient warning about suicide vests. ‘He has lived these issues,’ McGurk said.
2. Molly Murphy — a pollster for the Biden campaign, and president of Impact Research — set up a focus group in a Midwest battleground with about 60 swing voters, who used dials to show their mid-debate reactions. She says that when it came to deciding who to vote for, participants showed they were more concerned about the candidates' substance than style.
‘They did not think the president had a great performance,’ Murphy conceded in a phone interview.
But she said Biden came out ahead when voters were asked who should lead the country, and which candidate was more likable, knowledgeable and presidential. The voters panned Trump's answers on Jan. 6 and Vladimir Putin.
What they're saying: The campaign last night released a memo from Jen O'Malley Dillon, who heads Biden's campaign, pointing to encouraging data despite the ‘familiar story’ of ‘the beltway class’ counting Biden out.
‘On every metric that matters,’ JOD wrote, polling shows the debate ‘did nothing to change the American people's perception, our supporters are more fired up than ever, and Donald Trump only reminded voters of why they fired him four years ago.’
But the memo includes this memorable disclaimer: ‘If we do see changes in polling in the coming weeks, it will not be the first time that overblown media narratives have driven temporary dips in the polls.’
What's next: Biden arrived late last night at Camp David, where he's expected to have a family conversation about whether he's ‘in’ or ‘out.’” [Axios]
Aides shielded Biden, but couldn't hide debate
The Bidens leave the debate studio in Atlanta on Thursday night. Photo: Gerald Herbert/AP
“Joe Biden's close aides have carefully shielded him from people inside and outside the White House since the beginning of his presidency, Axios' Alex Thompson reports.
Why it matters: The intermittent access has resulted in many current and former White House aides being shocked at the 81-year-old president's limitations at Thursday night's debate.
‘It's time for Joe to go.’ That's what Chandler West, the White House's deputy director of photography from January 2021 to May 2022, wrote in an Instagram story after the debate.
‘I know many of these people and how the White House operates. They will say he has a 'cold' or just experienced a 'bad night,' but for weeks and months, in private, they have all said what we saw last night — Joe is not as strong as he was just a couple of years ago,’ West wrote.
Reached by phone, West said he wrote the post because ‘the debate was not the first bad day, and it's not gonna be the last.’
Behind the scenes: Biden's behavior stunned many in the White House in part because Biden's closest aides — often led by Jill Biden's top aide, Anthony Bernal, and deputy chief of staff Annie Tomasini — took steps early in his term to rope off the president.
Even the White House's residence staff, which serves the first family in the mansion's living quarters, has been kept at arm's length.
A White House official said the president ‘is deeply appreciative of the residence staff's work, but is unused to being waited on regularly or having butlers, so some staff are often allowed to go home early.’
White House Deputy Press Secretary Andrew Bates told us: ‘In every administration, there are individuals who would prefer to spend more time with the President and senior officials.’” [Axios]
President Joe Biden during Thursday's debate in Atlanta. (Will Lanzoni/CNN)
“After President Joe Biden’s alarming debate performance, Democratic donors are in crisis, racked by anxiety over what — if anything — the party’s wealthiest backers can do to reinvigorate or replace Biden, whose campaign has commissioned new polling to assess the damage.
The Supreme Court ruled that the Justice Department overstepped by charging hundreds of people who rioted at the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, with obstruction in a decision that could force prosecutors to reopen some of those cases.
Beryl, the first hurricane of the 2024 Atlantic season, intensified into a ‘very dangerous’ Category 3 storm as it churns toward Barbados and the Windward Islands, promising destructive hurricane-force winds and life-threatening storm surge.
As the ongoing systems outage at software provider CDK Global stretches into its second week, car dealerships are accumulating millions of dollars in losses. Workers said the software blackout has made it difficult for dealers to track customer interactions, orders and sales.
Warren Buffett changed how his considerable fortune will be spent following his death. The 93-year-old chairman of Berkshire Hathaway will put his wealth in a new charitable trust overseen by his three children and does not plan to continue donations to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.” [CNN]
Ron DeSantis strips more than $32m in Florida arts funding
Political allies are also surprised at move, which cancels nearly entirety of state’s funding and will affect economy
“Ron DeSantis stripped more than $32m in arts and culture funding from Florida’s state budget over his hatred of a popular fringe festival that he accused of being ‘a sexual event’, critics of the rightwing governor say.
DeSantis justified his unprecedented, wide-ranging veto of grants to almost 700 groups and organizations by saying it was ‘inappropriate’ for $7,369 of state money to be allocated to Tampa fringe, a 10-day festival that took place earlier this month with a strong message of inclusivity, and its sister event in Orlando.
‘[It’s] like a sexual festival where they’re doing all this stuff,’ DeSantis said at a press conference Thursday, without elaborating.
‘When I see money being spent that way, I have to be the one to stand up for taxpayers and say: ‘You know what, that is an inappropriate use of taxpayer dollars.’
As a result, he has canceled almost the entirety of Florida’s already slim funding to the arts world, denying much-needed dollars to a diverse array of groups including youth orchestras and choirs, museums, art galleries, dance troupes, zoos, cinemas and community theaters.
Most rely on the state contribution to operate fully, or in many cases simply for their survival. So it makes little sense to any of them that what DeSantis sees as standing up for the taxpayer equates to killing performances, exhibitions and jobs….” Read more at The Guardian
MONDAY
“Steve Bannon, former adviser to then-President Donald Trump, is due to report to prison to serve his criminal contempt of Congress sentence. A jury found Bannon guilty of contempt in 2022 for not complying with a House January 6 Committee subpoena for his testimony, but the trial judge initially paused his four-month prison sentence for his appeal to play out. However, a federal appeals court rejected the conservative podcast host's bid to avoid prison. Bannon also asked the Supreme Court to intervene, but the justices rejected his effort with a brief order on Friday.
July 1 is also Canada Day!
TUESDAY
July 2 marks the 60th anniversary of then-President Lyndon B. Johnson signing the Civil Rights Act into law, preventing discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex and national origin.
THURSDAY
Happy Independence Day! July 4 is, of course, a federal holiday, so banks, post offices and non-essential government offices will be closed. Most retailers, on the other hand, will be open.
Voters in the UK head to the polls for a snap general election called by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak in May — a contest he is almost certain to lose. Recent polls have placed Sunak’s Conservative Party well behind the opposition Labour Party, with Labour leader Keir Starmer expected to not only win power but have a massive parliamentary majority.
Nathan’s annual hot dog eating contest on Coney Island is set to take place, but without reigning champion Joey Chestnut. Chestnut, who has won the "Mustard Yellow Belt" 16 times and ate a world record 76 hot dogs and buns in 10 minutes in 2021, was barred from this year's contest after he struck a deal with plant-based company Impossible Foods. Quick to pounce on a marketing opportunity, Netflix announced that Chestnut will face off against his rival Takeru Kobayashi on Labor Day in a special titled “Chestnut vs. Kobayashi: Unfinished Beef.”
FRIDAY
While many people will be enjoying the day off, the folks at the Labor Department will be preparing to release the monthly employment report for June. Wall Street is hoping for a slowdown in job growth after May's report showed job growth rose higher than expected. As to why a strong job market would be considered a bad thing, the Federal Reserve is looking for a slow-but-steady cooldown in the labor market in its battle to bring down inflation before it can consider lowering interest rates.” [CNN]
“Lives Lived: Ann Lurie was a self-described hippie who went on to become one of Chicago’s most celebrated philanthropists, in one instance giving more than $100 million to a hospital where she had once worked as a pediatric nurse. She died at 79.” [New York Times]