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Good Friday Morning! We’re on the brink of the Super Bowl, and that’s always fun. A week ago, I felt terrible about Sports Illustrated laying off many of its writers and editors. They are moving in the direction of AI writing for their stories.
But then Sports Illustrated announced they were putting Brittany Mahomes in the swimsuit issue, and I started cheering the layoffs. Please give me more Taylor Swift over the family of Patrick Mahomes any day of the week.
The week’s breaking news is the special counsel releasing a report on Biden’s handling of classified documents. I’ll be honest: I did not expect this to be a big deal because I never expected them to prosecute Biden. But that report has triggered a total meltdown in Democratic politics and the media (see today’s links section for a taste). I’ll get into that and why my mind has changed on what’s about to go down at the Democratic convention – links to follow.
Quick Hits:
- John Schindler wrote a great piece on why Ukraine is losing the war. In it, he explores the conflict and the similarities with how this war is going versus the First World War. It hit on many points I’ve had, too. The United States is coming to a crossroads moment over Ukraine. How far are we going to prevent Russia from taking over Ukraine? That’s the unanswered question over all of this. Will we surge resources and troops to stalemate it and negotiate an end? Are we going to let Russia have it? That crossroads comes with another issue, too. Whatever path we take, China will be watching with Taiwan. The list of reasons why China shouldn’t attack Taiwan is long. It’s doubtful China is ready or that they could hold Taiwan. But the counter to that is simple: the time to attack with a distracted and divided United States is now. An election year is the best time to attack because it’s the most challenging time for a President to respond.
- I wrote a column in December arguing that Nikki Haley needed to drop out. I said she had no path forward, was unpopular, and had a support base that depended on Democratic voters in New Hampshire but no other state. Not only has that proven true, but she lost the Nevada primary – a race without Donald Trump or any other candidate besides Mike Pence. Nikki Haley lost that race to “None of these candidates.” I’ve read a lot of nonsense from Haley’s friends in the media, who have trashed the DeSantis campaign. But I’ve never seen a person touting themselves as a major candidate lose to “None of these candidates.” It’s arguably the biggest failure in primary history.
Where you can find me this week
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The White House Admits It Let A Known Terrorist Cross The Southern Border – Conservative Institute
The Chinese And Russian Plans To Attack The American Homeland – Conservative Institute
America Is A Traumatized Country – Conservative Institute
Ukraine Is Losing The War – Biden Must Find A Way Forward – Conservative Institute
Operation Replace Biden Has Begun
At noon on Thursday, if you’d asked me for odds on whether Biden would be the Democratic nominee, I’d have said close to 100%. For a myriad of reasons, I saw the possibility of Democrats removing Biden at, or before, the convention as a long shot at best, impossible at its worst.
At around 2:30 pm cst Thursday, that belief dropped below 50%. I haven’t decided how low I’ve dropped on that point, but I now see it as more likely than not Biden won’t be the nominee after the convention. Or put another way, the Democratic Party is about to make a concerted effort to get Biden off the ballot between now and the convention.
Procedurally, what that looks like, I can define. Politically, how it plays out is anyone’s guess. What I’m going to do is describe what changed. After that, I’ll cover procedurally what Democrats face and the political landmines in front of them.
The Classified Documents Report Drops
A few days ago, I made a mental note of a story in Axios that said the White House was bracing for a negative report from the special counsel on his handling of classified documents.
Axios wrote, “President Biden’s team is concerned that special counsel Robert Hur’s investigation into Biden’s handling of classified documents will hurt his re-election campaign … Biden aides don’t expect criminal charges in the case, but they believe Hur’s report will include embarrassing details — possibly with photos — on how Biden stored documents.”
The sources for Axios were underselling the concerns. This report is triggering a full-blown meltdown in the White House and in Democratic politics. The official statements from the White House focus on Biden being “innocent.” But Axios’s “bracing” angle tells us the White House fully understands how bad this report is for Joe Biden’s re-election chances.
The special counsel report is sprawling, with 388 pages. A direct link to it on the DOJ’s website is here. The special counsel is unsparing in his descriptions of Biden’s incapacity on a mental level. There are two ways you can read this report: 1) Biden is lying and is fine, or 2) Biden is in a far worse mental state than anyone knows.
Given what Democrats are leaking to top outlets and what I can see with my own eyes, it’s the second option. Biden may be a blowhard, but he’s rapidly falling apart mentally.
The special counsel describes Biden’s memory as “significantly limited, both during his recorded interviews with the ghostwriter in 2017, and in his interview with our office in 2023.” He also describes Biden as having “limited precision and recall.”
In one of the early sections, Biden’s incapacity is described (emphasis mine):
We have also considered that, at trial, Mr. Biden would likely present himself to a jury, as he did during our interview of him, as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory. Based on our direct interactions with and observations of him, he is someone for whom many jurors will want to identify reasonable doubt. It would be difficult to convince a jury that they should convict him-by then a former president well into his eighties-of a serious felony that requires a mental state of willfulness.
The DOJ states that Biden does not have the mental capacity to pull off a willful crime. Ponder that for a second.
At one point, the DOJ compares the 2017 taped discussions Biden gave to the ghostwriter of his memoirs to the DOJ interviews last fall. In a stunning few paragraphs, the special counsel says (emphasis mine):
Mr. Biden’s memory also appeared to have significant limitations – both at the time he spoke to Zwonitzer in 2017, as evidenced by their recorded conversations, and today, as evidenced by his recorded interview with our office. Mr. Biden’s recorded conversations with Zwonitzer from 2017 are often painfully slow, with Mr. Biden struggling to remember events and straining at times to read and relay his own notebook entries.
In his interview with our office, Mr. Biden’s memory was worse. He did not remember when he was vice president, forgetting on the first day of the interview when his term ended (“if it was 2013 – when did I stop being Vice President?”), and forgetting on the second day of the interview when his term began (“in 2009, am I still Vice President?”). He did not remember, even within several years, when his son Beau died. And his memory appeared hazy when describing the Afghanistan debate that was once so important to him. Among other things, he mistakenly said he “had a real difference” of opinion with General Karl Eikenberry, when, in fact, Eikenberry was an ally whom Mr. Biden cited approvingly in his Thanksgiving memo to President Obama.
The special counsel says Biden was bad in 2017 but significantly worse in 2023. And I’d argue he’s worse now in 2024 than he was last fall. From just reading DC reporting, it seems like Biden gets noticeably worse every quarter, which could be speeding up.
The White House is trying to defend these descriptions on two fronts. The first is by implying Biden was distracted by the October 7 attacks on Israel by Hamas. The second is by complaining that the President’s memory is good and that the language in the report is “prejudicial.”
It’s incredible how contradictory these responses are. If October 7 so thoroughly scrambled Biden’s memory, the White House could have called for more interviews to ensure better answers. They did not. On the second one, if Biden’s memory is so good, why did October 7 leave him incapable of remembering his own son’s death?
More to the point: the special counsel cleared Biden because he’s mentally incapable of being charged. Is the White House arguing Biden is mentally capable of being charged? You can’t claim victory while knocking out the leg to why you’re victorious.
But it’s all a word game, anyway. This is a White House in total crisis, trying to avoid a further meltdown with voters. Also, this White House is trying to defend itself from all sides, including its own party.
To cap things off, the White House held a hastily put-together press conference late at night for Biden to try to dispel all the issues. While doing that, he referred to Egyptian President El-Sisi as the President of Mexico. Calling the press conference a disaster is putting it mildly. Biden made things worse.
This is a DEFCON 1 moment in Democratic politics. There are earnest conversations happening across Democratic politics on how to get Biden out and who should replace him. The press is starting to turn on Biden, which tells you about the conversations happening behind the scenes.
The Looming Convention
The Democratic Convention is scheduled for August 19 – 22, 2024. In political terms, that’s an eternity away. In real terms, it’s just over six months away. That means Democrats have to figure out whether or not Biden can do this, if they can force him out, or who can cobble together a coalition in just six months.
Put in those terms, this is a desperate scramble. You’ll hear people say some variation of this line, like Megyn Kelly, “They must want him out. What other explanation is there?”
It may be emphatically true that Democrats want Biden out. However, wanting Biden out and actually replacing Biden are two radically different things. There’s a reason Biden won in 2020, and none of the other factional candidates came close to winning.
While I think it’s more likely that Biden gets kicked out (somehow), what happens after that is unknown. Here are the factional divides that will want his spot:
- Vice President Kamala Harris: She has the inside track despite being unpopular and not liked by many
- CA Governor Gavin Newsom: Has done everything but campaign directly against Biden. He desperately wants the job.
- MA Senator Elizabeth Warren: Similar to Newsom, wants the job badly. But is deeply unpopular outside her core base.
- The Obamas: Everyone likes batting around the Michelle Obama option. She does not want the job. Barack would like to run things, but Michelle has openly talked about all the reasons she hates politics, her time in the White House, and everything related to it. Regardless, the Obamas are major power players in a final decision.
- The Clintons: There’s not much of a shot that Hilary makes a push on the convention floor, but the Clintons are still major power players, and their circle of friends is all over the DNC.
- Bernie Sanders / The Squad: They don’t have a chance at winning. But they can swing votes.
Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear, and Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitman will be popular dark horse candidates (or VPs), but they cannot move the national needle fast enough. There will be no chance to build a following. You’ve got six months to convince delegates to go with you.
Those factions matter because many of them are Democratic Super-Delegates. Democrats will decide on the rules of the convention when they get there, so I’m going off the 2020 rules and what I know about the process in general.
A president is chosen at a convention when he or she wins enough delegates in the primary process. Normally, a candidate wins the delegates in a primary race, and everyone votes according to how their state pledged from the primary vote. If the top candidate wins a majority of the delegates, there’s a vote at the convention, everyone votes how they’re supposed to, and you get your Presidential candidate.
But if the person who has the most delegates drops out, or there is no person with a majority, we go into multiple rounds of delegate voting until a majority winner emerges. Some states force their delegates to continue voting according to the state’s primary results for a set number of rounds. After that, the delegates are free to vote for who they want.
That’s where the horse trading begins. Delegates are usually state and federal-level politicians. It’s the elite of Democratic politics.
As I see it, there are two ways for this to go down: 1) Biden steps aside and frees up his delegates to vote for who they want (open season), or 2) the DNC tries to halt a first-ballot victory via super-delegates or a rules change. The first is likely the only path forward because I doubt the DNC can pull off the second route.
There are approximately 4,672 delegates, with 739 of them being super-delegates. Biden will win the delegate count by a landslide because no one is really opposing him. Right now, he wants to run again. But no one in the Democratic Party thinks he can do it.
NBC News headlined today as a “nightmare” for Biden. They pulled these quotes from anonymous Democrats:
“It’s a nightmare,” said a Democratic House member who asked to speak anonymously to provide a frank assessment, adding that “it weakens President Biden electorally, and Donald Trump would be a disaster and an authoritarian.”
“For Democrats, we’re in a grim situation.”
“This is beyond devastating,” said another Democratic operative, speaking on condition of anonymity to talk candidly about Biden’s shortcomings. “It confirms every doubt and concern that voters have. If the only reason they didn’t charge him is because he’s too old to be charged, then how can he be President of the United States?”
Asked if Hur’s report changes the calculus for Democrats who expect Biden to be the party’s nominee, this person said: “How the f— does it not?”
Another Biden ally called it “the worst day of his presidency.”
I mention this story because most super-delegates are elected officials under DNC rules (or former Presidents). They’re the ones quoted in these stories. And from now until the convention, there will be a concerted effort to drive Biden off the top of that ballot. Super-delegates hold the most power in this effort because they are not beholden to a state’s primary results.
The critical outlets to watch during this push are the New York Times, Politico, and the Washington Post. The Times has already called this a political nightmare. I’ve written several columns detailing the NYT’s attempts to navigate Biden’s health, age, and mental state. These outlets typically reflect whatever the preferred narrative of the Democratic Party is.
Watch also for the first round of polls to come out in the coming weeks. If Biden tanks hard, especially with Democrats, the effort to get Biden out will grow. They need Biden off the ballot, and then the Democratic Party needs someone to wrangle the delegates necessary to top the ballot.
By my estimation, Kamala Harris is the only person who can pull that off. There’s no way around her. Kicking Harris off the ballot – the first Black woman in the job – and substituting her for Gavin Newsom, Elizabeth Warren, or someone else would fracture the Democratic Party so thoroughly that it’d take a decade or more to recover.
This reality is why the Michelle Obama rumors are so frequent on the internet. I’d be surprised if Michelle Obama did it; Barack and the Democrats would have to strongarm her into it. Barring that, Democrats are stuck with Biden or Harris. It’s hard enough getting beyond Biden. Chucking Harris as well is nearly impossible (barring her having some cataclysmic event like Biden is having).
There are two ways Biden can leave the ballot:
- Have him step aside at the convention; or
- Have him resign from the Presidency, let Kamala Harris step into the White House, pick a VP, and run as the new ticket.
But everything hinges on getting Biden off the top of that ballot. And today triggered the clock for Democrats. They have six months to figure out how to replace Biden, and neither time nor Biden are on their side. Operation Replace Biden has begun.
Related: Donald Trump’s current odds of winning are greater than they were at any point in 2016. In the RealClearPolitics average, Trump leads Biden by two points and has led or tied Biden in ten of the last twelve polls. And some of those Trump leads are outside the margin of error. Trump’s lead matches the generic ballot, where Republicans hold a two-point advantage over Democrats.
As I said, it’s DEFCON 1 for Democrats. All hands on deck to right the ship, and that will include the media.
Last point: I believe removing Biden will irrevocably rip apart the Democratic coalition for the coming years. Replacing him without a democratic process, when you’ve screeched for the last four years about defending democracy, plums new depths of hypocrisy with the American public. It’ll destroy whatever gains they’ve made because of Trump.
Links of the week
Biden confuses Macron with Mitterrand (who died in 1996) – Politico
Maddow Suggests Biden Isn’t Too Old for the Presidency Because ‘He Rides a Bike’ – Mediaite
America Is in Deep Trouble: The president weakens America for a chance at reelection – Matthew Continetti
Biden’s Unannounced Nighttime Speech an Absolute DISASTER – PKMedia
The Supreme Court seems poised to reject efforts to kick Trump off the ballot over the Capitol riot – AP
Shaky commercial loans threaten a new regional bank crisis – Semafor
The Disappearing Democratic Coalition: Time for Democrats to break out of their bubble. – Roy Teixeira
Family Of Kid Accused Of Blackface Sues Deadspin – Outkick
Gina Carano Sues Disney Over ‘Mandalorian’ Firing in Lawsuit Funded by Elon Musk: The actress claims the entertainment giant discriminated against her for voicing certain opinions on hot-button issues. – The Hollywood Reporter
X/Twitter Thread(s) of the week
Left-leaning Jew describes the blowback he’s received.
Satire of the week
Biden Recalls Speaking To Dead European Leaders Often As They Beckon Him Toward The Light – The Onion
Biden Calls For The President To Step Down – The Babylon Bee
How to Watch Someone Navigate a TV Menu Even Though They’re Doing It Differently Than You Would – Reductress
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Reintroduces Jocks to Wild to Keep Nerd Numbers Down – The Hard Times
Tucker Carlson Quicksaves Before Entering Conversation With Putin – The Hard Drive
Daily Mail Struggling To Link Meghan Markle To King Charles’ Cancer – Waterford Whispers News
Thanks for reading!