Facing the bad political predicamentChairperson Joe Biden is urging assistants to come up with a more compelling message and a sharper strategy while emphasizing how they have tried to rein in the blabbering personality that has long become one of its potential assets. his best.
Biden is baffled by his sunk approval ratings and is looking to regain voters’ confidence that he can deliver the solid leadership he promised on the campaign trail, people close to the president said.
Crises have piled up in ways that sometimes make the Biden White House look ordinary: records inflationaryhigh gas pricearose in Number of vivid cases – and now a Texas School Massacre it was a more horrifying reminder that he was unable to get Congress to pass legislation to limit gun violence. Democratic leaders are confused about how he can revive his prospects in November, when midterm elections could lose his party’s control of Congress.
“I don’t know what is required here,” said Representative James Clyburn, DS.C., whose endorsement in the 2020 Democratic primaries helped rescue the running candidate. Biden’s troubles. “But I know the probe numbers have been stuck in their place for too long.”
A shake of the West Wing?
There’s been speculation that Biden could change the staff of the West Wing, though that didn’t happen immediately. Many people close to the White House said they had heard that Chief of Staff Ron Klain would be leaving at some point after midterms, and one had heard him discuss leaving.
Should Klain go, one potential successor is Anita Dunn, a White House adviser and confidant of Biden, whom he often turns to when his fortunes seem bleak. Dunn started at the White House at the start of his term, then left and returned in early May at Biden’s specific request. No woman or person of color has served as White House Chief of Staff since the position was created after World War II.
Other possible replacements include Steve Ricchetti, a longtime Biden aide who is an adviser to the president, and Susan Rice, head of domestic policy. After losing his race for Virginia governor last year, Terry McAuliffe spoke to the White House about taking on the role of senior adviser to the president, people familiar with the matter said. cabinet sign or chief of staff.
The White House did not reach out to Klain or Dunn for comment. Remi Yamamoto, senior communications adviser to the White House, said: “As Ron has said publicly, he has not set a timeframe, and this is not a discussion over anyone’s head here. ”
This article is based on interviews with more than two dozen current and former administration officials, lawmakers, congressional aides and other Democrats close to the White House who spoke with on condition of anonymity to freely discuss the president’s private conversations.
Any assessment of Biden’s performance needs to take into account the major challenges he faced in the first place.
Chris Whipple, author of a book on White House chiefs of staff, who is currently writing a book about the Biden presidency. “What’s next? Locusts?”
Biden wondered the same thing.
A White House official said: “I heard him say recently that he said during President Obama’s tenure that everything was on his desk but only locusts, and now He understands how that feels.”
Management problem
In the midst of a series of calamities, Biden’s feeling lately is that he can’t rest. A person close to the president said: “Biden is very frustrated.
One presumption made during Biden’s candidacy is that he will preside over a smooth administration based on decades of public service experience. However, there are signs of a management breakdown that has angered both him and his party.
Biden is upset that he was not informed sooner about the shortage of baby formula and he had his first briefing in the past month, even though the crisis is long overdue. (The White House did not specify when Biden had his first press conference about the formula shortage.) His candidate to head the Food and Drug Administration, Dr. Robert Califf, told Congress on Wednesday. last week that the agency was slow to work and it was successful”not optimal“decide when parents search for formula on empty store shelves.
Beyond policy, Biden is unhappy about a model that has developed inside the West Wing. He made a clear and concise statement – only for his hasty aides to explain that he actually meant otherwise. He told advisers the so-called campaign cleansed him, undermined him and defeated the authenticity that fueled his rise. Worse yet, it takes the Republican Party’s point of view that he’s not quite in command.
The matter became acute when Mr. Biden announced in a speech in Poland that Russian President Vladimir Putin “cannot continue to be in power”. Within minutes, Biden aides tried to take down his comment, saying he was not calling for Putin’s removal and that US policy had not changed. Biden was furious when his comments were deemed unreliable, claiming he was telling the truth and reminding staff that he was the president.
Asked about staff clarification of Biden’s remarks, the official said: “We’re not saying anything the president doesn’t want us to say.”
Democrats are not happy
Biden’s fury is bubbling up across the group. Democratic lawmakers are arguing among themselves and blaming the White House for their dim prospects for November.
Representative Stephanie Murphy, D-Fla., said the White House had failed to come up with what she called an “intellectically honest” plan to combat inflation — a burden that ranks first among the list. economic concerns of Americans, poll. A bill the House of Representatives passed to crack down on accused people gas price drill not an answer, she said.
“If I sound frustrated, it’s because I hear it from people in my constituency,” Murphy said. “They’re having a hard time. This is not the time for political games. It’s not the time to look for fakes.”
A spokeswoman for the office said she had not talked about the policy with a senior White House official in six months. The White House official countered that Murphy was in “very frequent communication with our staff here.”
Biden’s Disappointment
Biden has told aides about not receiving credit from the Americans or the media for actions he believes have helped the country, especially regarding the economy. The unemployment rate has dropped below 4% – pre-pandemic levels – but the poll shows most Americans believe the economy is slowing down. bad shape. Biden says Republicans don’t get their blame for the legislative deadlock in Congress, while he’s repeatedly been faulted for not passing his agenda.
The president has also told aides he doesn’t think there are enough Democrats on television to defend him. One particularly painful point was his drop in polls; he is confused that his approval rating has dropped to roughly the same level as his predecessor Donald Trump, ranked by historians as one of the worst president in history.
Another person close to the White House said: “He’s shorter than Trump right now, and he’s really confusing about that.”
At a meeting with advisers about a month ago, Biden was surprised to find that polls showed he voted among suburban women, according to two people familiar with the meeting. One adviser said Biden receives weekly poll briefings that delve into “key demographics” and that, because he’s been monitored so often, he hasn’t reacted. there. (At a press conference in September, Biden candidly said, “I don’t look at the polls – not a joke.”)
The White House official denied that Biden was feeling down. “What he’s pushing for is to make a sharper case for all that we’ve achieved so far,” the person said.
A few weeks ago, Biden began adopting a midterm election tactic that has been applied to incumbent presidents: destroying the opposition. He has sought to force Republicans to join Trump’s Make America Great Again agenda. But Biden relied on White House aides to deliver a message that appealed to voters’ rigorous selection. Biden himself coined the phrase “Ultra MAGA,” which he and other Democrats have begun using in hopes of creating a stark contrast to Trump’s movement.
The phrase has tested well in a poll reviewed by the White House, but it also has the undesirable effect of inciting Trump loyalists. Sellers have found a hot market for “Ultra MAGA” t-shirts.
“He shares the view that we’re not getting the message of midterm victory,” a third person close to the White House said of the president. “And he’s putting a lot of pressure on people to figure out what that is.”
No regrets going forward
One of Biden’s rules for his political troubles at the start of the new year is to travel outside of Washington more. As he stepped out of the country, he also drew interest from Democrats about what his administration is – or isn’t – doing.
“Everybody confronts him,” said a top Democratic Party donor who has witnessed such conversations at fundraisers. “All he heard was ‘Why can’t you do anything?'”
No questions asked. About three-quarters of Americans believe the country is headed in the wrong direction, a recent NBC News poll found – the fifth time in 34 years that so many Americans are unhappy with the direction of the land. country.
There is no rest period after midterms. The 2024 presidential election season begins in earnest after the final races are announced. No sitting president wants to be challenged for the party’s nomination; Biden can’t count on a free ride.
“We’re going in the right direction – we’re going astray,” Faiz Shakir, a senior adviser to Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, said of Democrats.
