by Frank Holmes, reporter
After cruising through three years of his presidency with unified support and glowing media coverage, President Joe Biden is suddenly facing insistent calls that he drop out of the 2024 Democratic presidential primaries.
It’s no secret Biden is elderly, unsuccessful, and unpopular. What’s gone unreported is a string of details that seem to identify the man behind pressuring Joe out of the Oval Office is none other than Barack Obama.
Biden has lacked the support of most Democrats for a large part of his presidency. Just months ago, three out of four Democrats said they wanted someone else to run for the office. But things really went South for team Biden when The New York Times released a poll showing Biden trailing President Donald Trump in five out of six must-win swing states: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, and Pennsylvania.
It’s wasn’t a small lead, either: Trump trounced Biden by up to 10 points.
Former Obama advisor David Axelrod tweeted out the poll, with a none-too-veiled threat for Biden to call it quits.
“Only @JoeBiden can make this decision. If he continues to run, he will be the nominee of the Democratic Party,” Axelrod posted on Elon Musk’s social media platform, X. “What he needs to decide is whether that is wise; whether it’s in HIS best interest or the country’s?”
He went on to say that Donald Trump is so horrible — Hillary Clinton would compare him to Adolf Hitler on The View this week — that “the stakes of miscalculation here are too dramatic to ignore.”
Only @JoeBiden can make this decision. If he continues to run, he will be the nominee of the Democratic Party. What he needs to decide is whether that is wise; whether it's in HIS best interest or the country's?
— David Axelrod (@davidaxelrod) November 5, 2023
Since then, prominent Democratic leaders have called on Biden to bow out.
“I don’t think President Biden should run. We have talent in the Democratic Party,” said former Congressman and 2020 Democratic presidential hopeful Tim Ryan of Ohio. “I think that it would be the right thing to do for the president to not run, for him to focus on what’s going on in the Middle East, focus on what’s going on in Ukraine.”
Biden is “doing a good job,” said Ryan; he just shouldn’t run. “Let new candidates emerge in the Democratic Party,” he told CNN Monday.
Former Dem Rep. Tim Ryan calls on Biden to drop out of the presidential race: "I don't think President Biden should run. The whole country wants to move on. It would be the right thing to do." pic.twitter.com/uEnq18Q2Bn
— TheBlaze (@theblaze) November 7, 2023
Even late-night “comedian” Jimmy Kimmel joked around on ABC, “Calls for Joe Biden to drop out are getting louder, but that could be because he couldn’t hear them.”
ABC’s @jimmykimmel: “Calls for Joe Biden to drop out are getting louder, but that could be because he couldn’t hear them.” pic.twitter.com/FatEQTAlQA
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) November 8, 2023
Former Democratic pollster and advisor Dick Morris thinks he knows the moment Biden will call it quits.
“They will keep them until a few days before the convention and then he would announce he’s not running, release his delegates, and there would be a floor fight for the nomination,” Morris told “Wake Up America” on NewsmaxTV. “But at least there wouldn’t be a long primary battle.”
The strategy would also let the 2024 Democratic candidate hide his — or her– radicalism. Looking forward to replacing Biden in 2024, the Democratic leaders “didn’t want their candidates defending reparations for slavery, and men participating in women’s sports, all that stuff that hangs up the Democratic Party.”
Now, Biden can avoid a primary, deny his party’s rank-and-file a vote on their nominee, and give a completely unvetted and non-democratic nominee to the Democratic Party.
The heat may have gotten to be too much for Axelrod, who half-heartedly walked back his statements in public. “It’s overreacting to say I told him to drop out. I didn’t do that,” Axelrod told Politico. “He’s the only one to make the decision. And if his decision is ‘no, I’m the best person to take this on,’ then he will.”
That’s not exactly a ringing endorsement.
The story includes vague details about how Axelrod represents the Obama wing of the Democratic Party, which is at war with the Biden wing. After all, when Biden told Obama he wanted to run for president, Obama famously told him, “You don’t have to do this, Joe.”
“Tensions between the Obama and Biden camps are not new. But they have become a bit more pronounced in recent days,” says Politico.
“Among Obama alums, there was quiet anger early on in Biden’s presidency that the president’s team kept touting his record as the most transformative for a Democrat since the Lyndon Johnson administration (notably skipping over their time in office),” the article points out. “Among Biden aides, there is a perpetual sense that Obama alums discount them politically.”
Conservative columnist Larry Elder says he’s decoded Obama’s second-hand takedown of Joe Biden via Axelrod.
“When ‘former Obama adviser’ David Axelrod advises Biden to drop out, he speaks for @BarackObama, who is too cowardly to say it. But make no mistake, Kamala Harris is next batter up—or black female Democrat voters will got ballistic,” wrote Elder, who recently ended his own 2024 presidential campaign. “She must agree to step aside—but she won’t!
When “former Obama adviser” David Axelrod advises Biden to drop out, he speaks for @BarackObama, who is too cowardly to say it. But make no mistake, Kamala Harris is next batter up—or black female Democrat voters will got ballistic. She must agree to step aside—but she won’t!
— Larry Elder (@larryelder) November 6, 2023
That’s why Biden has to stick it until after the primaries are over.
The question is: Who’s going to get the Democrats’ coronation instead of Biden?
Not Dean Phillips, the Minnesota congressman who reluctantly announced his longshot campaign to unseat Biden.
Definitely not Marianna Williamson or now-independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Kamala Harris is next in line, but her approval rating is lower than Biden’s, assuring a disaster in 2024.
California Governor Gavin Newsom has been running so hard that even stroke-impaired Senator John Fetterman of Pennsylvania called him out for it. But Newsom has two problems he can’t fix: He’s a white male. Replacing Kamala Harris, a black woman, with a white man will never fly in the DEI-mocratic Party.
So, the Democrats need a black female 2024 presidential nominee—and Barack Obama is leading the effort to make way at the top of the ticket.
That leaves Michelle Obama.
Is that what’s behind all the Obama-led pressure for Joe Biden to quit?
Frank Holmes is a veteran journalist and an outspoken conservative that talks about the news that was in his weekly article, “On The Holmes Front.”