Biden 2024 https://washingtonsun.com/biden-2024 Biden 2024 en-US Mon, 21 Jul 2025 19:50:28 GMT Hunter Biden Says Ambien Contributed to Dad’s Poor Debate Performance https://washingtonsun.com/biden-2024/hunter-biden-ambien-joe-debate-trump Amelia Benavides-Colón He made the comments in an interview released Monday, the one-year anniversary of Joe Biden’s decision to drop out of the 2024 race. Mon, 21 Jul 2025 19:50:28 GMT https://washingtonsun.com/biden-2024/hunter-biden-ambien-joe-debate-trump Hunter Biden
Rod Lamkey/AP
Hunter Biden on Monday blamed former President Joe Biden’s disastrous debate performance last year at least partially on his undisclosed use of the sleep drug Ambien.

He made the comments during a three-hour interview on Channel 5 with Andrew Callaghan, a YouTube series with over 3 million subscribers known for its political commentary. During the wide-ranging conversation, Hunter Biden spoke about his struggle with addiction, provided insight on the former president’s mental state and delivered an angry tirade against a number of Democratic Party operatives he felt had wronged his father in the waning days of his 2024 campaign.

“I know exactly what happened in that debate,” Biden told Callaghan. “He’s 81 years old. He’s tired as shit. You give him Ambien to be able to sleep. He gets up on the stage, and he looks like he’s a deer in headlights, and it feeds into every story.”

The podcast was released on the one-year anniversary of Joe Biden’s decision to drop out of the presidential race. He later endorsed his vice president, Kamala Harris, as his successor.

https://x.com/Channel5iveNews/status/1947390997945848019
The decision to drop out came a few weeks after a widely panned debate performance against Donald Trump in late July 2024 that left Democrats struggling to defend Biden’s mental fitness. 

Biden repeatedly lost his train of thought during the debate, rambling and ending one answer with a mumbled comment about having “beat Medicare.”

“Biden had a very low bar going into the debate and failed to clear even that bar,” former housing secretary under Barack Obama, Julian Castro, wrote on X following the debate. “He seemed unprepared, lost, and not strong enough to parry effectively with Trump, who lies constantly.”

Prior to the debate the then-president had traveled to several campaign stops, and has blamed the weak performance on inadequate sleep and a lingering cold he was battling. 

In the days following, Biden’s physician issued a letter describing his health regimen, which contained no mention of Ambien or other sleep-related medications.

Joe Biden Debate AP-24180071136976 (4896x3264, AR: 1.50)
In recent months, Republicans have accused top aides in the Biden White House of hiding the truth about the former president’s mental capabilities from the public. 

A panel on the GOP-led House Oversight Committee is currently investigating the former president’s mental fitness and his use of a mechanical signature, or autopen.

“I made every decision,” Biden said in a phone interview with The New York Times, asserting that he had his staff use an autopen replicating his signature on the clemency warrants because “we’re talking about a whole lot of people.”

During the lengthy interview Monday, Hunter Biden also addressed how his father was treated after the debate, criticizing Democrats in Hollywood, specifically George Clooney, for failing to support his father.

“George Clooney is not a fucking actor — he’s a brand and by the way, God bless him, he supposedly treats his friends really well,” Hunter Biden ranted. “He’s got a really great place in Lake Como and he’s great friends with Barack Obama. Fuck you, what do you have to do with fucking anything? Why do I have to fucking listen to you? What right do you have to step on a man who’s given 52 years of his fucking life to the service of this country?”]]> Joe Biden Made His Farewell a Warning https://washingtonsun.com/joe-bidens-farewell-address Em Luetkemeyer After a decades-long career in politics, President Joe Biden gave a farewell address in which he emphasized his commitment to a peaceful transfer of power. Thu, 16 Jan 2025 02:22:42 GMT https://washingtonsun.com/joe-bidens-farewell-address President Joe Biden gives his farewell address.
Mandel Ngan/AP
President Joe Biden used his farewell address Wednesday night as an opportunity to warn the country of several current and rising threats.

“I have no doubt that America is in a position to continue to succeed,” Biden said. “That’s why my farewell address tonight, I want to warn the country of some things that give me great concern.”

In his list, he included technology like artificial intelligence and social media, making reference to platforms’ recent decisions to abandon fact-checking. He warned voters about a growing concentration of wealth and power in the country. And he reiterated his calls for reforms, such as 18-year term limits for Supreme Court justices and an amendment to the Constitution that makes clear “no president is immune from crimes that he or she commits while in office.”

He also reiterated his promise to ensure a peaceful transfer of power, mentioning members of President-elect Donald Trump’s team being part of discussions about the ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas as an example.

His short speech to close out a decades-long career in politics, given from the controlled environment of the Oval Office, emphasized how different a role Biden is playing in the public eye and in his party now than at the start of his presidency.

Biden’s low approval rating resembles Trump’s at the end of his first term. And though Biden eventually dropped out of the 2024 presidential race, it was not before members of his party broke from him and called for his withdrawal. Even after, some Democrats made clear they’d rather not see him on the campaign trail for Vice President Kamala Harris.

Democrats have said history will be kind to Biden, arguing that time will make his legacy look good. On Wednesday, Biden appeared to agree.

“It will take time to feel the full impact of all we’ve done together, but the seeds are planted, and they’ll grow and they’ll bloom for decades to come,” he said.

“Now it’s your turn to stand guard,” he said.

—
Em Luetkemeyer is a NOTUS reporter and an Allbritton Journalism Institute fellow.]]> ‘I Think He Fails the Test’: Gaza Defines Joe Biden’s Foreign Policy Legacy https://washingtonsun.com/foreign-policy/gaza-defines-joe-biden-foreign-policy-legacy John T. Seward As Biden leaves the White House, Democratic insiders say he will be remembered for his policies in the Middle East. Thu, 26 Dec 2024 11:00:00 GMT https://washingtonsun.com/foreign-policy/gaza-defines-joe-biden-foreign-policy-legacy President Joe Biden speaks at a news conference on July 11, 2024.
President Joe Biden's administration spent more than a year pushing for a ceasefire deal between Hamas and Israel as the conflict only widened. Jacquelyn Martin/AP
When President Joe Biden took office, he pledged to “repair” America’s alliances, “engage with the world once again” and demonstrate the United States’ diplomatic power. Those in Biden’s orbit pitched a return to normalcy but with more openness to progressive voices on foreign policy.

As he leaves, progressives are disappointed at best and furious at worst. The majority of the U.S. disapproves of Biden’s job on foreign policy. In Washington, nonprofit organizations like Amnesty International have accused his administration of refusing to see human rights violations and said the U.S. is complicit in war crimes in Gaza. Democratic lawmakers in Congress have plenty of criticism for how Biden has handled the relationship with Israel and the deaths of U.S. civilians in the region.

“This is where the commitment to human rights, international law, the commitment to, you know, sort of rules-based order, is tested,” Allison McManus, an international policy expert at the liberal Center for American Progress, said. “And, I just, I think he fails the test.”

Asked about Biden’s foreign policy successes, the White House pointed to his accomplishments in the Pacific and rebuilding NATO.

“The president standing up for good causes and core values around the world, that’s his legacy,” one White House official said. “More than any previous administration, he’s brought Americans home.”

But, two major flash points are proving to be much more defining of his presidency: the withdrawal from Afghanistan — which coincides with the start of a continued decline in his approval rating — and the war in Gaza, which lost Democrats crucial votes in the election.

“We worked so closely with him on domestic economic policy and feel like he had such an incredible legacy,” Rep. Pramila Jayapal told NOTUS. “But I think it is marred by how the deaths in Gaza unfolded, the lack of a cease-fire, the continuing destruction of settlements in the West Bank. I mean, all the violence that we’ve seen and his inability to empathize on it.”

More moderate Democrats say Biden still has a chance to make it work. Progressives point to Gaza and Israel’s broadening war in the Middle East as the hallmark that he’s already failed.

“A lot hangs in the balance of whether a Gaza cease-fire can be agreed to. If the answer is yes, I think it’s ultimately a pretty solid legacy, but it’s the Middle East, right? So a lot can happen before tomorrow morning,” Rep. Jim Himes said. “If the president can land a cease-fire and hostage deal, that would be a signature achievement.”
Rafah AP-24148280571332 (5184x3456, AR: 1.50)Rep. John Garamendi acknowledged just how much of a cloud Biden’s Middle East policy holds over his foreign policy record, but he blamed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu more than Biden. He described a strained relationship, with Netanyahu taking advantage of a weakness of the administration and letting him force his policies.

“Netanyahu is doing exactly what Netanyahu wants to do,” he said. “He put the Biden administration in a very, very difficult bind, for too long.”

Biden directed his State Department to pursue a whole-of-government campaign of diplomacy. But as the conflict has continued, so has the U.S.’s flow of weapons into Israel. Netanyahu has balked for months at the U.S.’s calls for change.

“He comes out as the staunch ally of Israel in its time of greatest need, again, which I think speaks to how he values alliances,” McManus said. “But it’s to a fault, and it’s to such a fault that it, unfortunately, I think, taints the rest of his legacy in terms of restoring the credibility of the United States as a global leader.”

The White House did not respond to a request for comment.

***

Two months before Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, the Biden administration established the Civilian Harm Incident Response Guidelines. The message to the entire State Department was that incidents that might cause civilian harm using U.S. weapons were to be sent up the chain. Reports would go to a small, newly established group that would review and make recommendations on the use of weapons from the U.S. going overseas.

Foreign groups would be investigated with support from the Department of Defense and the intelligence community and receive State Department reports from all across the world. Fulfilling congressional requirements of “End-Use Monitoring” specifically for civilian harm, the small team’s recommendations could result in suspending arms sales or contracts.

According to ProPublica, the State Department shirked reports that Israel was deliberately blocking humanitarian aid. The outlet also reported that administration officials rejected calls from inside the State Department to “completely or partially cut off” weapons sales to Israel.

The U.S. government wouldn’t commit to ever releasing a conclusive report on Israel’s conduct. It didn’t have personnel on the ground and wouldn’t rely on outside sources. That reality repeatedly undercut Biden’s warnings about humanitarian harm and his calls for the Israeli Defense Forces to change its methods.

“Those people do feel the political pressure,” Josh Paul, a former State Department employee who left the agency after more than 11 years over “provision of lethal arms to Israel,” told NOTUS.

“People would reach down to say, ‘Oh, by the way, you shouldn’t consider Amnesty International as a credible report. They’re not on the ground, who knows where their reporting is coming from, it could be Hamas,’” Paul alleged. The White House did not respond to a request for comment.

Amnesty International is one of the very few organizations with personnel on the ground in Gaza. After six months, an Amnesty International field worker said he “cannot believe that my family and I are still alive.” His work collecting evidence of civilian deaths on the battlefield and violations of international humanitarian law is one of the few windows into Israel’s conduct. Meanwhile, major U.S. allies abroad, like the United Kingdom and Canada, have suspended arms deals with Israel over the likelihood they are used in a “serious violation of international humanitarian law.”

Progressives saw the Biden administration’s position as a sham.

“It’s just complete bullshit,” Matt Duss, the vice president for the Center for International Policy and former Sen. Bernie Sanders adviser, said. Talking to the administration in attempts to slow aid to Israel, Duss thought maybe the investigations could be a way to condition military aid. He was wrong.

“It was a completely bullshit process, and it produced a bullshit result,” he said. “That entire process represented his acceptance that, yes, conditionality is an appropriate tool, even if he was dead set to kind of sidestep it.”

Duss said that soon after he brought up the investigations, he felt stonewalled. “That conversation, for what it’s worth, is over.”
Israeli soldiers AP-24001606926171 (8640x5760, AR: 1.50)
***

The Biden administration put a lot of pressure on cease-fire negotiations. One of Biden’s most experienced diplomats, now the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, Bill Burns, was sent to mediate. But that diplomacy campaign has resulted in so many false starts and announcements of being “close to a deal” but with no resolution, that even some of Biden’s allies have become skeptical.

When national security adviser Jake Sullivan announced that his meeting with Netanyahu in December went well and showed signs of promise, Sen. Ben Cardin said he took it with a grain of salt.

“I had some information prior to that meeting that there was positive signs towards a cease-fire in Gaza and the release of the hostages,” Cardin said. “As I told my staff, that’s about the 30th time that they’ve come around and told me that, and it hasn’t come out, so excuse me for being guarded.”

Sen. Richard Blumenthal said the administration would take it right down to the wire.

“They seem to be working hard right through the end and running through the tape seeking every possible solution to the ongoing war,” he said.

“There’s still hope.”

But, with the Trump inauguration less than a month away, few lawmakers think that anything will change.

“He certainly has no choice but to leave it behind. The question is what we’ll have in between now and the next 30 days," Garamendi said.

***

Republicans in Congress have honed in on Biden’s foreign policy. The House Foreign Affairs Committee released a 353-page report on the withdrawal from Afghanistan, detailing the mistakes that lead to tens of thousands of allied Afghans on the ground being isolated and killed.

They’ve signaled they will continue the investigation into the Biden administration even in the new Congress.

Rep. Brian Mast, who came to Congress in an IDF uniform, will be the committee’s new chairman. This means that Democrats will likely have to relive some of the most difficult times of the Biden administration regarding foreign policy in the years to come. The Democratic Party, as well, has work to do to rebuild trust within its own base on foreign policy, progressives say.

“Look at the way that Trump just went to the Arab and Muslim communities and courted them to say, ‘I’m going to bring about peace when nothing in his record has that,’” Jayapal said. “Essentially, to position himself as the person who’s going to bring peace in the Middle East, even if it means wiping out entire populations.”

As for the Democratic Party’s agenda, Duss said the window he once saw for a more progressive American foreign policy appears shut.

“It’s really hard to overstate the impact that one president can have on foreign policy,” Duss said. “It’s become just abundantly clear that Joe Biden has a very outdated view of America’s role in the world.”

Why?

“Because ideology is a hell of a drug. Yeah, you know, American exceptionalism is a hell of a drug.”

—
John T. Seward is a NOTUS reporter and an Allbritton Journalism Institute fellow.]]> Democrats Say Joe Biden Is Welcome to Campaign for Kamala Harris. But Only in Some Places. https://washingtonsun.com/biden-2024/democrats-joe-biden-campaign-kamala-harris-only-in-some-places Em Luetkemeyer Joe Biden has faded into the background ever since Kamala Harris became the Democratic Party’s presidential nominee. In the final days of the campaign, other Democrats want him to be strategic about where he appears. Tue, 29 Oct 2024 09:00:00 GMT https://washingtonsun.com/biden-2024/democrats-joe-biden-campaign-kamala-harris-only-in-some-places Joe Biden visits Steamfitters Technology Center in Pittsburgh.
Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP
Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump are locked in a high-stakes homestretch to the presidential election. But an obvious person has been much quieter on the campaign trail: the sitting president.

President Joe Biden has been largely absent from the campaign trail this fall, appearing only in strategic scenarios like labor union events in Pennsylvania.

Several Democrats in key battleground areas argued that Biden’s presence could help in some spots, whereas in others it could be a liability. They told NOTUS they’re still enthusiastic about the job he’s done as president, but they’d like him to stick to it.

“Biden is really not on the front burner for us right now,” said Mary Arnold, the co-chair of the Democratic Party in Columbia County, Wisconsin. “What I’m thinking — and probably what other people are thinking — is that the guy’s running the country, you know? I mean, I don’t think it’s appropriate to take time off from his job as president to be campaigning.”

Biden said on Monday that he’s still playing an active role in the campaign.

“I’ve done a lot of surrogacy,” Biden told reporters after voting in Delaware on Monday. “I’ve also had to be president at the same time. I’ve been to all the battleground states, I’ve been campaigning, but I also had to continue my job as president.”

“I’ve been on the trail, we talk all the time, and they’re asking me where they think I should be to help them most. I’m going to be in Pennsylvania, going to head to Scranton and a few other places,” he added.

Biden has made recent stops on the campaign trail, including one at a Democratic dinner in Philadelphia where he said Harris would “cut her own path” as president like he did after serving as Barack Obama’s vice president. He also appeared at an event on Saturday at a union hall in Pittsburgh where he delivered pizza and thanked union workers on behalf of the Harris-Walz campaign.

On Sunday, Axios reported that Biden has not been making appearances with Harris because her team considers him a “political liability” and the campaign is reluctant to tie the two together due to the president’s low approval rating. The Harris campaign did not answer a question from NOTUS about how it decides when and where Biden should appear on the campaign trail.

“Vice President Harris is grateful for President Biden’s support and appreciates that he is campaigning for her,” said Harris spokesperson Ian Sams in a statement to NOTUS.

Biden’s more targeted role is different from that of Obama, who engaged in historic campaigning for Hillary Clinton in 2016 and has spent recent days out on the trail as one of Harris’ highest-profile surrogates across several battleground states.

“It doesn’t make sense that [Harris] needs or should have [Biden] right next to her because it doesn’t give her that independence and her own sort of credibility and vision going forward,” said Amanda Renteria, the political director for Hillary Clinton's 2016 presidential campaign. “I think it’s smart that every surrogate has a phase with the candidate, and we’ve moved beyond the Biden phase of this campaign.”

Biden appearing on the campaign trail with Harris now “doesn’t give you the image of her moving forward,” Renteria said.

Biden, who endorsed Harris immediately after dropping out of the presidential race, has taken steps to help Harris win. His team pointed to several instances where the president campaigned on her behalf, including recording fundraising videos and robocalls and past joint travel they’ve done together, such as for a Labor Day event.

Sam Talarico, chair of the Democratic Party in Erie County, said there’s no better place for Biden to appear than at a union event in Pennsylvania. Even though Biden hasn’t been “too visible,” Talarico said he’s an “asset in most places in Pennsylvania.”

“He’s still Scranton Joe, after all,” he said.

But he acknowledged that might not be the case elsewhere, and other Democrats agreed.

Lewanna Tucker, chair of the Democratic Party in Fulton County, Georgia, argued that Biden would be ineffective at breaking through to young Black men, which the Harris campaign has been making efforts to reach.

“I think that we're looking for something fresh,” Tucker said. “[Biden] should continue to go where he has a stronghold, but I think that if he wants to come to Georgia, it needs to be a part of rural Georgia where they're not maybe getting as much play at the moment.”

Cassandra Conover, chair of the Democratic Party in Nash County, North Carolina, said his presence could still be helpful in reaching die-hard Biden fans.

“There's still a group of people that were hurt by Biden not staying in the race,” Conover said. “That is a block of people that I believe that he will reach, that nobody else can reach.”

Biden also can still create political headaches for Democrats. They experienced one when the president used Trump’s infamous “lock him up” line against him last Tuesday at a small campaign event in New Hampshire. (He quickly said that he meant it “politically.”) Conservatives were quick to attack Biden and Harris for it.

Annette Magnus, a Nevada-based Democratic strategist, said Biden is not a hindrance or danger to the Harris campaign despite that specific comment. He’s done “everything humanly possible” to help Harris, and like every incumbent, there are natural things that follow him, and she agreed that the president may be a more effective surrogate in some scenarios than others.

“As someone who has lived in a battleground state my entire life, this cycle we are being inundated with a diversity of surrogates by the Harris campaign,” Magnus said. She added that is critical in an election like this one.

And in an election cycle fueled by the battle over reproductive rights, Biden’s record of touting his support for them pales in comparison to that of Harris — an “attractive” and “relatable” candidate who has been “outstanding” with her messaging on the issue, Talarico said.

“Joe Biden, for whatever reason — probably because it’s more of a generational thing — he was hesitant to even say the word ‘abortion.’ And Kamala Harris is addressing it head on,” Talarico said. “I think people are really excited about that.”

—
Em Luetkemeyer is a NOTUS reporter and an Allbritton Journalism Institute fellow.]]> Joe Biden’s Campaign Trail: Touting the Inflation Reduction Act https://washingtonsun.com/biden-2024/joe-biden-campaign-trail-inflation-reduction-act Anna Kramer Biden is going to Wisconsin to announce more than $7 billion for clean energy projects. Thu, 05 Sep 2024 10:00:00 GMT https://washingtonsun.com/biden-2024/joe-biden-campaign-trail-inflation-reduction-act Joe Biden in NC
Biden is visiting several swing states to tout the Inflation Reduction Act. Ben McKeown/AP
President Joe Biden is hitting the campaign trail — for the Inflation Reduction Act.

The Biden administration’s education push around the landmark climate law’s investments is in full force this week. They invited reporters on two press calls yesterday to talk about developments in clean energy, and on Thursday, Biden is visiting Westby, Wisconsin, to announce more than $7 billion for solar, wind, transmission and other electrification projects in rural areas across 23 states.

While the White House announces new federal funding nearly every week — and often more than that — Biden himself is rarely involved in those announcements.

His trip Thursday is just one of several visits to swing states this week, including Michigan and Pennsylvania, each of them around the president speaking with local communities about the impact of the IRA.

Biden will be accompanied by Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, who seemed to warn Republicans this week that attempts to tighten or limit the climate law would harm the rural communities many Republicans represent.

“I’m really deeply concerned about that because you can see … the opportunity over the course of the next several years to make investments in rural job growth and rural economic opportunity,” he said about any efforts to “take some resources away from the Inflation Reduction Act.”

The longevity of the IRA has come under particular focus in recent weeks, as it was the subject of a recent Donald Trump presidential campaign event and as Republicans hone in on a message around energy prices.

Trump targeted Democrats’ efforts to spur the transition away from fossil fuels to clean energy, attacking them for spiking electricity costs and falsely accusing Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris of shutting down American energy infrastructure.

“Most Americans are unaware that Harris and Biden have been shutting down entire swaths of our energy and electricity infrastructure without replacing it or even talking about it, leading to spiking electrical prices and energy prices and also an energy shortfall like we’ve never had before,” Trump said last week at a Michigan rally.

The Biden administration has acknowledged that gaps in the transition to renewable power are leading to price increases, and they are calling for faster and more extensive investment in transmission infrastructure and expanding renewable energy sources.

The IRA will be a serious subject of debate in the new year if Democrats don’t gain control of Congress. House Speaker Mike Johnson has floated the idea of cutting back aspects of the policy in exchange for extending tax cuts Trump signed into law in 2017.

Though that won’t necessarily be an easy ask of all Republicans: Already a group of House Republicans, who initially opposed the IRA, have called on Johnson to protect the energy tax credits within the law because of the investment spurred in their districts.

Ultimately, for Biden, this campaign is also a matter of legacy. He is now racing to cement his place as the leader who catalyzed the nation’s clean energy transition — and pushed the country toward an industrial policy that reinvents American manufacturing. And so far, the polling shows that most Americans just don’t see him that way.

—
Anna Kramer is a reporter at NOTUS.]]> Joe Biden Presents His Legacy, in His Own Terms https://washingtonsun.com/biden-2024/joe-biden-convention-speech Casey Murray The president gave a convention speech that he hadn’t wanted to give. But he still tried to use it to present his own narrative of the last four years, and his decades-long career. Tue, 20 Aug 2024 05:05:25 GMT https://washingtonsun.com/biden-2024/joe-biden-convention-speech Biden speaks at the 2024 DNC.
Charles Rex Arbogast/AP
President Joe Biden’s address to the Democratic convention late Monday night began with tears and a profession of love for his children and wife (his heart still goes “boom, boom, boom” when he sees her walk down the stairs, he said). What followed was a forceful summation of his rise to the presidency, a defense of his record and his own framing of his decision to end his political career after 50 years.

Unlike every other speech of the night, Biden’s was not explicitly about the Harris-Walz ticket. Rather, this was his time to define a legacy.

The president’s address — notably on the first night of the convention instead of the last, and running well past midnight on the East Coast — pulled from some of Biden’s most iconic speeches of the last five years: from when he denounced the neo-Nazis who marched in Charlottesville, to his 2022 Philadelphia address about the battle for the soul of the nation.

On Monday night, he declared democracy saved. The new fight: preserving it.

“We’re in a battle for the very soul of America,” he said to cheers, not for the first time. “We came together in 2020 to save democracy.”

“I believed then and I believe now that progress was and is possible, justice is achievable and our best days are not behind us. They’re before us,” he said.

Biden had an awkward job Monday night. After deciding to end his reelection bid in late July, following pressure from other Democrats, he endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris and had to become her cheerleader for the job he had wanted to keep.

The night — featuring speeches from rising members of Congress, future possible Democratic leaders and union chiefs — was mostly not about Biden. Until the end of the night, as his speech approached, there was little mention of him outside of occasional thank-yous.

“Joe, thank you for your historic leadership,” Harris said as she kicked off the prime-time speeches with a short surprise address. “For your lifetime of service to our nation and for all you will continue to do. We are forever grateful to you.”

“Let’s salute President Biden,” Hillary Clinton said in her own speech to the convention. “He has been democracy’s champion at home and abroad. He brought dignity, decency and confidence back to the White House, and he showed what it means to be a true patriot. Thank you, Joe Biden, for your lifetime of service and leadership.”

When he got to speak, well beyond the originally scheduled time, he sought to explain what exactly the thank-yous were for.

Biden’s speech detailed achievements like student debt relief and the Build Back Better plan, with a focus on the middle class. He referenced extremism, like in Charlottesville and on Jan. 6, and painted a picture of progress, frequently juxtaposing his positions with Trump’s, with key themes around moving the country beyond his predecessor’s presidency. He discussed the pandemic, the stabilizing economy after record-high inflation and joining the autoworkers’ picket line in Michigan.

He also repeatedly brought attention to his role in elevating women, including nominating the first Black woman to the Supreme Court, before leading to his decision to endorse Harris to succeed him. Before he spoke, his daughter Ashley introduced him, in part, as “the OG girl dad.”

At one point, Biden even raised the prospect of a coming cease-fire in Gaza, in a war that has shadowed the last months of his presidency. And throughout, he relied on his background as a “kid with a stutter” from a working-class family in Scranton, Pennsylvania, and frequently drew back these achievements to how they impact families like his.

“I could not stay on the sidelines,” he said. “As your president, I’ve been determined to keep America moving forward, not going back.”

And he also, at times, took a step to include Harris in his successes.

“Because of you, we’ve had one of the most extraordinary four years of progress ever, period,” he said. “When I say we, I mean Kamala and me.”

The crowd and the establishment Democrats were wildly supportive. Though people in the crowd were instructed to hold their “Thank you, Joe” signs until the end as a “send-off,” Biden had to stop his speech multiple times, interrupted by booming chants. Biden himself was clearly feeling the energy, shaking his fist at Trump several times, performing better than he did during his last few high-profile speeches.

During one misstep in his speech, one attendee said that “It’s OK, Joe,” and “We love Joe” chants broke out.

But it was also clear that it was time to pass the torch, even in speeches from his closest political allies.

“For President Biden’s lifetime of achievement, his service to his country, we owe him a great debt of gratitude,” Rep. Jim Clyburn said. “And we’re all grateful for one of the best decisions he made: selecting Kamala Harris as his vice president and endorsing her to succeed him.”

“Mr. President, thank you,” Sen. Chris Coons said. “Thank you for elevating a great leader in Kamala Harris.”

Travis Williams, the executive director for the Delaware Democratic Party, told NOTUS it wasn’t a bittersweet night.

“There were some folks in Delaware who were sad to see the president step aside, but I think time since then has come to terms with the fact that he didn’t step down — he stepped up,” Williams said.

Biden, Williams said, gave his loyal delegates a chance to “send him off into the sunset and say farewell, and honor his legacy.”

“I helped Joe Biden get elected,” Martin Willis, a union member from the Delaware delegation, told NOTUS on Monday night, naming Biden as a man his family has known since the ’60s. “I’m very proud of my president, I’m very proud of Joe. We love Joe Biden.”

Biden made only a brief nod to his resignation as candidate.

“I’ve got five months left in my presidency. I’ve got a lot to do, and I’m gonna get it done,” he said. “It’s been the honor of my lifetime to serve as your president. I love the job, but I love my country more.”

While most of the president's speech focused on his legacy, he made clear he’d be supporting Harris.

“I promise I’ll be the best volunteer Harris and Walz’s camp have ever seen,” he said.

He closed his speech on a song he said his family loves, “American Anthem.”

“America, I gave my best to you,” he quoted.

—
Casey Murray is a NOTUS reporter and an Allbritton Journalism Institute fellow. Jasmine Wright contributed reporting from Chicago.]]> The Awkwardness of Joe Biden in Chicago https://washingtonsun.com/2024-election/democratic-convention-joe-biden Evan McMorris-Santoro, Jasmine Wright, Calen Razor The president is the main event on the first day of the convention. Then he’s going on vacation. Mon, 19 Aug 2024 09:47:00 GMT https://washingtonsun.com/2024-election/democratic-convention-joe-biden Joe Biden (exit) AP-22180427549192
Kenny Holston/AP
CHICAGO — Last week, organizers of the Democratic National Convention proudly debuted the stage at the United Center they’d been working on for “over a year,” where the party will officially kick off the general election over the next four days.

The man they originally built it for will see it for a few hours, stand on it maybe a couple of times and then is expected to hastily get out of town, leaving it behind for someone else to build the next chapter of their career on.

Such is the melancholic undertone for day one of the massive party confab. President Joe Biden is scheduled to speak Monday and then depart for a vacation as Democrats toast his decision to step down and hand the presidential nomination over to Vice President Kamala Harris. It is the end-of-summer journey where Biden — depending on who you talk to — went from party standard-bearer to victim of party leaders to proud mascot of what it truly means to be a Democrat to convention footnote.

All of those vibes and more will be apparent on Biden’s night, Democrats told NOTUS. Many delegates are glad to no longer be nominating him but also deeply grateful that he stepped aside. But also: eager to move on, quickly.

“People want to hear a forward-facing type of speech from [Biden],” John Verdejo, a DNC member from North Carolina, told NOTUS. “A sort of, ‘Thank you for considering me and for your support, and here is the person that I’m passing the torch to.’”

Like other delegates reached in the days leading up to the speech, Verdejo was quick to put Biden into the pantheon of popular past nominees attending the convention: Presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Biden and Rodham Clinton are the keynote speakers on Monday night. First Lady Jill Biden will also speak, and Biden family members will appear. The night will literally begin with Biden’s decision to step aside; delegates entering the United Center will be greeted by a quote from Biden’s July 24 Oval Office address when he formally stepped away from the campaign. “History is in your hands” will be printed on the stairs delegates climb to get to their seats for the night’s programming.

White House aides said to expect a presidential speech long on Biden’s record and pro-democracy message, all capped with a call for unity.

“The President’s desire is to make a strong case for Harris-Walz and hand off the convention to them, which all week will continue to highlight the Biden-Harris record,” a Biden aide said. “The President is pleased at the momentum behind the campaign, and looks forward to making his case.”

The drama in Chicago is rawer in some circles. Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has spoken publicly recently about losing sleep over the impact her role in Biden’s stepping aside might have on her decades-old relationship with the president. Obama was reportedly among those urging his former VP and those around him to reconsider the race.

So is Biden’s vacation plan advantageous, well-timed or spite scheduling?

“My sense is, it’s less about him and more about his circle. They feel that they were pushed out. Why would they want to sit around and be a part of this?” a plugged-in Democratic lawmaker told NOTUS.

But Biden departing Chicago after his speech is not “a demonstration of his sentiment towards [Harris] or what he will do to help her win,” the lawmaker added — whatever animosity is there, it’s not directed at her.

“It's more like, ‘Why do I need to sit around these people who showed no loyalty to me?’ the lawmaker said.

There are political reasons that make this a particularly well-timed planned vacation, though. The RealClearPolitics polling average shows Biden with a disapproval rating hovering around 60% as the convention gets underway. Democrats publicly begged him to abandon his reelection campaign in part because they were concerned voter feelings toward him were dragging down party-wide volunteer-recruitment efforts, fundraising and general enthusiasm among the base, not to mention polling. One of the biggest storylines before Biden dropped out was how to win over the “double-haters” — or make people who hated both Biden and the GOP nominee, former President Donald Trump, hate the Democrat just a little less.

That talk is, for the most part, over now, thanks to Harris. The party is very clearly trying to turn the page, and too much of Biden the president might make that harder to do. That’s even as many Democrats have rekindled a deep love and respect for Biden the man in the weeks since he (eventually) stepped aside with a great deal of (public) grace and pushed Democrats to nominate the first woman of color to top a presidential ticket.

It’s likely Biden will receive a hero’s welcome from Democrats when he takes the stage. When Biden and Harris appeared together last week for a White House event, the first time they had done so since Harris took over as nominee, the supportive crowd chanted, “Thank you, Joe.” It is a common sentiment among Democrats.

“He will be thanked for making a difficult choice for the future of the party. His decision to pass the baton to the next generation has invigorated the base and left the GOP in utter disarray,” Sabrina Lucia Rezzy, New York delegate and veteran political operative, said when asked how Biden will play in front of the DNC crowd. “His speech Monday will be as much about the future of the party as it is about what this administration has accomplished.”

“It will be a historic mic drop,” Rezzy went on.

In short, Democrats like him! But the polls show the broader public kinda doesn’t.

Republicans faced a similar conundrum in 2008. President George W. Bush was the man who had restored the Republicans to power after eight years of Clinton. But his RCP disapproval rating was hovering around 70% when the party’s early September convention rolled around. The campaign chronicle “Game Change” details a plan from top officials of Sen. John McCain’s campaign to send Bush to Africa for the duration of the convention and address it via satellite. (Two former McCain officials did not respond to a request for comment.) In the end, Bush and his even less nationally popular vice president, Dick Cheney, were slotted for the convention’s night one but didn’t appear in person at all after the first day was canceled following a natural disaster. The memory of a nominee trying to push aside an unpopular president remains.

But there’s nothing really to see here, say Biden’s allies. He is the sitting president. He is a busy person.

“He wants to go on vacation,” said an operative close to the White House, “while things are quiet.”

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Evan McMorris-Santoro and Jasmine Wright are reporters at NOTUS. Calen Razor is a NOTUS reporter and an Allbritton Journalism Institute fellow.]]> How Democrats Are Trying to Turn Coconuts Into Votes https://washingtonsun.com/harris-2024/kamala-harris-coconuts-meme-priorities Evan McMorris-Santoro A Democratic fixture has spent months working out a plan to move memes into action. Kamala Harris is giving them the opportunity they’d been missing. Wed, 31 Jul 2024 09:00:00 GMT https://washingtonsun.com/harris-2024/kamala-harris-coconuts-meme-priorities Kamala Harris
Alex Brandon/AP
A recent invite-only Zoom showcased the new opportunity Democrats suddenly have with Vice President Kamala Harris and how easily they can squander it if they’re not careful. The challenge, simply put, is to turn coconut tree emojis into votes.

Meeting that challenge requires abandoning traditional political messaging and giving up much of the careful control that defines modern political communications. Priorities USA, the Democratic powerhouse independent expenditure group that hosted the call, says it has been planning for this moment for years. Harris’ arrival lets Priorities fully implement its plan for the first time. If everything works out, Priorities will turn people like Meredith Judd into key players in the sprint to November.

Five days before she logged onto the Priorities Zoom, Judd was another young Democratic-leaning voter unenthused by President Joe Biden and his campaign. The problem had been plaguing Democrats all cycle — the president’s age and the war on Gaza had quieted the young digital army that had helped carry Democrats to victory in 2020. Losing Judd’s attention was especially poignant, if par for the course. She has participated in politics for years, prides herself on following the news and really, really does not like former President Donald Trump. But on that Sunday, she was sharing in a general feeling that there was no point in getting involved.

“I think that our generation, kind of in between Gen Z and millennial, we’ve noticed with our friends, people losing a lot of hope for Biden and thinking that he didn’t really stand a chance to win against Trump,” Judd, 26, said.

Then Biden dropped out, endorsed Harris, and suddenly, there was Judd, back in the room for Democrats. She recalled her husband getting the news alert on his phone while they were hanging out near their home in Manhattan. It was time to celebrate, she said, and time to post.

“I had never made a single political video before this,” Judd said. She meant the post as a joke, a mash-up of Harris’ famous “coconut tree” audio and laugh with the intro to Taylor Swift’s “Look What You Made Me Do.” The caption: “Mark my words, this sound will make Kamala win the presidency.”

The post was a hit on TikTok, racking up views and likes and shares very fast. That’s when Priorities reached out to Judd, finally spooling up in earnest an expensive plan that had been limited by Biden’s enthusiasm gap. The idea is to let creators like Judd know that by doing their own thing with the Democrats providing help where they need it, they can turn their newfound enthusiasm into real political work.

“It was our goal to build out the right team to be able to engage these creators when they were comfortable,” said Danielle Butterfield, executive director of Priorities and an architect of the group’s creator organizing strategy that has been underway all cycle.

For the first time all year, creators are reaching out to the group for help on how to make content about the likely Democratic nominee instead of looking for ways to talk about voting for the Democratic ticket without mentioning the guy who was then at the top.

“The brat and the coconut is all a way to get people to start paying attention to politics in a way that they weren’t necessarily paying attention before,” Butterfield said. “And we know that we have to sustain and grow that energy all the way until November.”

The Zoom call last week was part of what that looks like, according to Priorities. Organization staff reached out to many creators, like Judd, whose Harris-themed memes blew up and caught Priorities’ eye. Other attendees had worked with Priorities in the past on paid efforts. It’s possible some who appeared may end up creating for a paid Priorities campaign, too, but the Zoom was not a recruitment call or a job interview. It was half organizing, half high-level message strategy.

Priorities’ Senior Content Manager Julia McCarthy spoke both halves fluently, ably tailoring the kind of presentation familiar to campaign staff or seasoned reporters into the creator lexicon. (NOTUS viewed the part of the call where McCarthy presented to the creators under the stipulation that the participating creators not be named.) She put up a slide titled “The Ladder of Engagement.” A “we are here” arrow was at the top, next to a big box marked “memes.” That represents the organic enthusiasm everyone had seen on their feeds. The next step was to hit the meme-activated with verified and poll-tested messaging. Priorities presented the creators polling data showing the issues Harris was most trusted on and her strongest contrasts with Trump. Posts that help tell Harris’ story and put her in context against Trump would help move audiences down the ladder from memes to understanding “Kamala vs. Trump,” the last rung before “voting action.”

Priorities posts some of its own work that can easily be reposted but emphasizes that creators are the ones who make the best decisions about what to create. Impact comes from audience engagement, and creators know how to engage their audiences. In the chat running alongside the Zoom presentation, creators seemed to catch on fast.

“I hope someone makes a TikTok audio of that ‘childless cat lady’ Vance clip,” one wrote. Another creator popped up to say such a post already existed and said where to find it.

There were signs on the call of how difficult creators have found engaging with Democratic presidential politics this year before Harris came in. “The community is concerned about Kamala’s stance on Palestine and I think it’s legitimate,” one chatted. “Do you have any guidance on navigating that?” Another creator chimed in that Harris had called for a cease-fire in the Gaza war.

Butterfield said the question showed the Priorities program is working.

“I think that talking about candidates always feels a little bit more scary,” she said. Butterfield added that the group had good engagement on efforts to organize creators into campaigns attacking Trump or focusing on abortion or other issues, even in the weeks between the debate and Biden’s withdrawal. Those efforts required getting serious information to social media users who may be there for the silly memes. The post-coconut step online for Harris requires the same focus.

Priorities has been around for a long time and routinely pumps tens of millions of dollars into elections for Democrats. It has been doing the same thing this year — but with a very public shift in strategy to digital-only, trying to find and communicate with voters who don’t get touched by traditional campaign spending (aka TV advertising.) Up until Harris came in, Priorities had been focused on negative messaging about Trump and positive messaging about issues where Democrats are in step with voters, like reproductive rights.

Sometimes, that has meant paying creators to post stuff that Priorities wants posted. Sometimes, it means paying for more traditional-style ads that run on YouTube videos or streaming services. But some of the most powerful work comes from working with creators who want to make stuff on their own. This idea seems simple, especially to the growing group of Americans who get almost all their information from social media and understand how it works. But it can still feel revolutionary in the world of politics.

“There’s certainly campaigns that want to script their creators or have much more of a say on what exactly they’re saying,” Butterfield, 34, said. “These young voters, they’re spending so much time online, exposed to so many different marketing messages … our generation is just very good at sniffing out bullshit.”

Even as the ranks of the publicly coconut-pilled have grown and every outlet had to publish a Charli XCX explainer after Harris’ candidacy broke the internet, some professional Democrats have begun to panic that maybe it’s too much excitement, too fast. Others have warned that the coconut trees and bright green image-washes are just a tasty online “sugar high” that will fade into the regularly scheduled drudgery of the pre-brat news cycle.

Butterfield says the memes matter if there are people working to make them matter. Priorities’ work with creators is more organizing than advertising, she said. The group wants to make sure factual, verifiable information pops up in feeds on behalf of Democratic candidates, for example, so it provides that to interested creators. But Butterfield says, for the most part, they let the creators decide what to make, in keeping with a shift in how she says people view advertising.

“When I first started working in advertising, I was taught the goal was to stand out and to be different than everything else than the person’s watching,” she said. “That has now evolved to be, actually, you want your marketing to fit in with everything else that a person is seeing online.”

The shift requires taking some risks.

“We have to be able to give up full control in order to let authenticity drive,” she said

Since the call with Priorities, Judd’s feed has become very political, including one post reposting Harris campaign content, another offering a list of Harris-related things “giving me hope this week” and a post teasing Trump directly.

“It’s still very new,” Judd said of efforts to turn memes into political action. “Like, yes, you know the 18-24 demographic is really large, but it’s not all the votes Kamala Harris is trying to get. So I think there’s a balance between playing into it but then also still appealing to the older audience who just, like, really doesn’t understand it.”

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Evan McMorris-Santoro is a reporter at NOTUS.]]> ‘He Told Me to Get Past It’: Biden’s Close Friend and Philly’s Dem Party Leader Turns His Operation to Harris https://washingtonsun.com/biden-2024/bidens-close-friend-philadelphia-democratic-party-leader-operation-harris Evan McMorris-Santoro Biden’s longtime friend runs one of the most important local Democratic parties in politics. His members are glad he’s come around to Harris. Now, he has to figure out how to usher in a historic turnout. Fri, 26 Jul 2024 09:30:00 GMT https://washingtonsun.com/biden-2024/bidens-close-friend-philadelphia-democratic-party-leader-operation-harris Election 2024 Biden AP-24109592948990
President Joe Biden and former Rep. Bob Brady speak almost once a week. Alex Brandon/AP
PHILADELPHIA – Everything was exactly the same as always but also completely different inside the state Democratic Party’s HQ, where every week, elected leaders, ward leaders, volunteers, majordomos and free food aficionados gather to eat pizza and freely share their ideas on how to win the most votes possible in the city of brotherly love.

These are the Democrats who actually do the house-to-house, cajole-by-cajole work of pulling out voters in a swing state like Pennsylvania.

“I’m here from the Biden campaign,” one operative, a regular, said before their face blanked out in that way it does when a person realizes they just confidently proclaimed it the wrong day of the week in conversation with a stranger. “Harris campaign, fuck.”

Everyone in earshot laughed. Really laughed. Laughs that were maybe not there the last time they grabbed slices to gab about the state of things — seven days before this one. Signs of just how odd things are for Democrats at this moment were everywhere. In the entryway, a dozen or so neatly stacked Biden-Harris yard signs, ready to be distributed.

Many were ecstatic about Vice President Kamala Harris — her fundraising, her energy, and a real feeling that she had former President Donald Trump on the run.

“Finally, the Democrats have done the right thing. The. Right. Thing,” one relieved attendee said, requesting anonymity.

Everyone in the room wanted to be very careful about President Joe Biden for two reasons: First, they all like the guy, and second, because at the head of the table, holding court, was the Philadelphia Dems’ longtime chair, former Congressman Bob Brady. Seventy-nine, in a Boilermakers Local 13 polo shirt. He’s a personal friend of the Bidens since the days the two men were proudly, loudly Irish (Brady is also part Italian, Biden is also part a lot of places) and serving on different sides of the Capitol dome.

Brady says he talks to the president just about every week about a lot of things, including Corvettes.

“It’s very sad, you know? I shouldn’t say sad; I guess it’s bittersweet,” Brady said in his office lined with photos of his political career, including a giant one with Biden and another from the House floor with former Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a reported architect of Biden’s withdrawal. “God bless him; he’s going to be revered forever for doing what he’s doing, giving up the presidency.”

Recently, the two men talked about that decision, Brady said. He didn’t reveal how the conversation went, only that he offered to commiserate if Biden needed it. Brady has plenty of takes — the criticism of the debate was unfair, he said. Biden would have won in November, he insists.

Brady is proud that his Democratic Party stuck by the president. None of the Philadelphia Democrats publicly called for Biden to step aside, he said. They believe in loyalty. Two Wednesdays ago, you would have found him grumbling about self-serving politicians trying to save their own skins by sacrificing Biden’s and vowing to never forget the people who he thinks turned on his pal, including a specific list of colleagues from his days in the House.

This Wednesday, he was still doing that but added he was trying to follow Biden’s lead.

“He told me to get past it. And I said, ‘If you’re past it, I’m past it,’” he said. “So I’m in for Kamala, one hundred and ten percent.”

***
Election 2024 Giffords AP-24207767368464 (6761x4507, AR: 1.50)Harris is atop the ticket, but Democratic grassroots organizers in Pennsylvania are trying to figure out what else has to change.

The end of the Biden campaign and the beginning of the Harris one is murky so far from a strategic perspective. Although there are reports Harris is bringing in new operatives to help run the general election bid, the Philadelphia Democrats say they’re still talking to the same people they have all year. Party leadership is not looking for sweeping changes in strategy, despite months of fighting uphill against polling that showed a lot of voters were not crediting Biden for his accomplishments or improving their negative view of him. What they want is more. More rallies, more appearances, more effort spent on drawing contrasts.

Democrats always win Philadelphia, but the goal of the party here is to run up the vote total high enough to give Democrats a fighting chance against Republicans in other redder parts of the state.

“If we put out the vote that we normally put out on a presidential election, we’ll carry the rest of the state,” said Jim Harrity, an at-large member of the city council and volunteer political director of the Philadelphia Democrats, who got his start as a driver for Brady. Harrity said the party has been running robocalls and phone banks and text campaigns for months, far earlier than usual, to try to get as many voters out as possible.

But the run-up-the-totals scheme was rough sledding for the ward chairs of the Philly Dems before Biden dropped out.

“I’ve seen this in our area for some time, the voter apathy,” said Heather Miller, who works the doors in the 35th Ward and has been stumping for Democrats for 30 years in Philadelphia. Things got especially low after the assassination attempt against Trump and the iconic photo of his raised fist, she said. Her daughter asked her “how to prepare for a Republican world,” she recalled.

“The message was not permeating the younger voter,” said Leslie Burrell, a neighborhood chair in the city’s Ward 12 of the Biden-Harris campaign. The Harris-To Be Announced campaign is different. “Kamala is not old. Biden’s old.”

Still, Burell said it would take “laser-targeting” to make up the ground lost in the months Biden had not been exciting some voters with his message or turning them off altogether with his age. She lives in one of the city’s many areas with a large Black population, and she said young Black people she connects with need to hear more from the Democrats, she said. “You’ve gotta touch the younger audience,” she advised.

Veteran Black Democrats around the table said they had been worried by the same rise in support for Trump among younger people, especially younger Black men, that had been seen in some polling nationally. But not every Black politician at the pizza party was as eager to embrace that narrative. Andre Carroll is a young supporter of the progressive Working Families Party and is set to become a member of the state House in September after a special election in which he is running unopposed.

“The thing is, I am a Black, queer, male, progressive in this country,” he said. “And depending on what identity of mine you’re talking about, the conversation changes.”

Harris was already being painted as a radical lefty by Republicans, who launched an ad in Pennsylvania casting her as an extremist. Progressives and mainstream Democrats have not always gotten along in Philly — Brady’s machine has put pressure on Democrats not to support Working Families candidates. The arrival of Harris has changed that dynamic.

“We’re not boastful enough,” Carroll said, urging Democrats to tout the long list of progressive accomplishments under Biden. Age had dominated the conversation. “It was the loudest talking point in the room, and that was definitely unfortunate,” he said. “It’s off the table because guess what? Now we have a young, vibrant — we have a woman, right?”

Oh, and one other thing.

“Let her choose [Josh] Shapiro for vice president and see how enthusiastic it becomes,” said Harrity, referring to Pennsylvania’s first-term governor, who the Philadelphia Democrats voted unanimously to endorse as Harris’ VP pick.

Harrity says that while it will get much easier to excite Black Democrats and women, Harris’ ascension will likely make it harder to run up those vote totals with the kinds of white guys Scranton Joe is capable of connecting with.

“It does change the dynamic a little bit,” said Harrity. But that’s an easy problem to solve, said Harrity and others in the room.

“Shapiro will bring energy, and he appeals to Republicans,” he added.

Brady, overseeing the turnout operation that he hoped would keep Biden in the White House but is now convinced will do the same for Harris, said a campaign reset is not necessary. Shapiro is, he agreed.

Brady has had his beefs with the presidential campaign — according to him, he demanded Democratic coordinated campaign aides dispatched from Biden HQ be comfortable with Philadelphia, not outsiders “asking where to get the best cheesesteak.” Anyone working for the Democrats in Philly should already know, he said.

That issue was settled months ago. Now, Brady says, the rest is already in place among the people in the room smiling to each other, no longer using free pizza to eat their feelings but taking big bites of something that tasted like victory. He drew on his Italian American side to sum up Harris vs. Trump.

“She’s gonna give him major, major, major agita,” he said.

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Evan McMorris-Santoro is a reporter at NOTUS.
]]> ‘I Need to Unite My Party’: Biden Says Democracy Must Come Before ‘Personal Ambition’ https://washingtonsun.com/biden-2024/biden-address-withdrawing-candidacy Riley Rogerson With the pressure of reelection off, the president said he will keep his focus on priorities like ending the war in Gaza and addressing climate change. Thu, 25 Jul 2024 00:46:09 GMT https://washingtonsun.com/biden-2024/biden-address-withdrawing-candidacy President Joe Biden addresses the nation.
President Joe Biden said he will spend the rest of his presidency focused on issues like gun safety and court reform, among other policy areas. Evan Vucci/AP
For the first time since President Joe Biden’s campaign-ending debate performance in June, he seems to have satisfied his party’s expectations.

“I believe my record as president, my leadership in the world, my vision for America’s future, all merited a second term,” Biden said, sitting behind the Resolute desk. “But nothing, nothing, can come in the way of saving our democracy. That includes personal ambition. So I decided the best way forward is to pass the torch to a new generation.”

The overwhelming pressure was finally off of the president as he addressed the nation from the Oval Office. The scrupulous and unrelenting media focus on Biden’s campaign has been redirected to Vice President Kamala Harris’ near-certain ascension to the top of the Democratic ticket. Anxious Democrats and opportunistic Republicans who have been fixated on every Biden stutter and gaffe had less reason to hang on every word.

No longer expected to carry his party’s hopes of winning in November, Biden didn’t need to quell concerns about being an octogenarian. This time, he did precisely what the majority of Democratic voters wanted him to do — pass the torch.

“There’s also a time and a place for new voices, fresh voices, yes, younger voices,” Biden said. “And that time and place is now.”

Biden did, however, take the opportunity to shoot down his Republican critics who have called on him to resign from office entirely, outlining plans for his next six months in office. Though he spoke in sweeping terms, his agenda includes tackling gun safety, Supreme Court reform, climate change and ending the war in Gaza.

While Biden did not explicitly reiterate his endorsement of Harris during the speech (he endorsed her on Sunday), he made clear he supports her bid and thanked her for her role as his vice president.

“She’s tough, she’s capable,” he said. “You’ve been an incredible partner to me and a leader for our country.”

Ultimately, Biden focused more on his own legacy than on Democrats’ path toward victory on Election Day. While invoking presidents from Abraham Lincoln to Franklin Delano Roosevelt as well as historical giants like Martin Luther King Jr. throughout his address, Biden framed his presidency as a triumph of American ideals and himself as a champion for democracy.

“We’re a nation of promise and possibility. Of dreamers and doers, of ordinary Americans doing extraordinary things,” Biden said. “I give my heart and my soul for our nation like so many others. I got blessed many times in return with the love and support of the American people.”

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Riley Rogerson is a reporter at NOTUS.]]>