President Joe Biden’s advisors are said to be extremely anxious during their meetings with him, as he is only willing to listen to input from his top advisors, according to a leak from Politico. This leak highlights the discontent within the Biden campaign following a lackluster debate showing and growing pressure for Biden to withdraw from the race.
“It’s like, ‘You can’t include that, that will set him off,’ or ‘Put that in, he likes that,’” one senior administration official told the outlet. “It’s a Rorschach test, not a briefing. Because he is not a pleasant person to be around when he’s being briefed. It’s very difficult, and people are scared shitless of him.”
“He doesn’t take advice from anyone other than those few top aides, and it becomes a perfect storm because he just gets more and more isolated from their efforts to control it,” the official added.
Senior Deputy Press Secretary Andrew Bates refuted the false leak. As previously noted, Biden’s environment is becoming more controlled and isolated as his term progresses, in order to manage public perceptions of the oldest president to ever hold office. Perceptions of the president are turning negative. A Monday USA Today/Suffolk University poll found that forty-one percent of Democrat voters want Biden to drop out of the race, while only fifty-one percent want him to remain on the ticket. This poll is one of the first post-debate polls that Democrat operatives and donors will analyze to assess the overall impact on Biden’s candidacy following his debate performance.
“The media has been exaggerating this issue!” remarked Quentin Faulks, Biden’s deputy campaign manager, during a Monday phone call with donors. In response to the political risk, Biden has developed an eight-point public relations campaign to solidify his position as the Democratic Party’s presumptive nominee, as reported by Axios on Monday. This strategy includes more public interviews and press conferences, marking a shift from Biden’s previous lack of media availability, a strategy that has been criticized by the media, particularly the New York Times.
“Everyone was told this was for the best,” a White House staffer told Politico about Biden’s debate performance. “Now, it’s the worst possible outcome. And we’re all trying to figure out why the people who know him best and make all the decisions didn’t seem to anticipate that this might happen.”
