As much as high-ranking Democrats have tried to underplay or outright deny it, rumors have long persisted that the relationship between President Joe Biden and his old boss, former President Barack Obama, is tepid at best — and outright frosty at worst.
A new report from Politico isn’t going to help quell that chatter — especially in the wake of a disastrous presidential debate in late June that appears to have fractured the Democratic base.
Perhaps the most high-profile example of the fractured state of Democrats came on Wednesday, when actor George Clooney penned an opinion piece for The New York Times that called on Biden to step down.
“I love Joe Biden,” Clooney wrote. “As a senator. As a vice president and as president. I consider him a friend, and I believe in him. Believe in his character. Believe in his morals. In the last four years, he’s won many of the battles he’s faced.
“But the one battle he cannot win is the fight against time. None of us can. It’s devastating to say it, but the Joe Biden I was with three weeks ago at the fundraiser was not the Joe ‘big F-ing deal’ Biden of 2010. He wasn’t even the Joe Biden of 2020.
“He was the same man we all witnessed at the debate.”
The article, somehow, drew the ire of both Biden and his chief political rival and presumptive GOP presidential nominee, Donald Trump.
And the Clooney op-ed may have pulled that feat off because of a clear connection to Obama — who, again, probably isn’t the favorite of either Biden or Trump.
Will Joe Biden be on the Democratic ballot come November?
Per Politico, before Clooney published his “buzzy and brutal” NYT piece, he reached out to Obama about it.
(It is worth noting that Obama has no official position in the Biden administration, but he’s still very much a top figurehead in the Democratic party.)
Clooney reached out to Obama’s camp to give them “a heads-up” about the forthcoming piece, and the 44th president’s response was … interesting, to say the least.
Obama’s response? It was apparently one of screaming apathy.
“While Obama did not encourage or advise Clooney to say what he said, he also didn’t object to it, we’re told from people familiar with their exchange,” Politico reported. “The lack of pushback is an eye-popping revelation given that the former president was one of the first big voices defending Biden following his abysmal debate performance.”
You can see Obama’s (faux?) defense of Biden below:
Bad debate nights happen. Trust me, I know. But this election is still a choice between someone who has fought for ordinary folks his entire life and someone who only cares about himself. Between someone who tells the truth; who knows right from wrong and will give it to the…
— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) June 28, 2024
Compounding matters for Biden, the Politico report also noted that another top Democrat, Nancy Pelosi, isn’t exactly trying to keep Democrats reading the same book, let alone be on the same page.
“[Pelosi has] advised some Democrats in swing districts to do whatever they have to do to secure their own re-elections — even if it means asking Biden to relinquish his place atop the ticket,” Politico noted, though the former speaker apparently asked those same Demcorats to hold off on that “until this week’s NATO Summit is finished out of respect for Biden and national security writ large.”
Biden was already facing a stiff uphill challenge for re-election — even before that critical debate.
If his party continues to operate the way it is, that uphill challenge may genuinely be insurmountable.
