＂Nightmare for Three Weeks＂ before Biden’s Withdrawal： The Spread of Panic and Anxiety and the Increase of ＂Insiders＂

When US Republican presidential candidate Trump welcomed his new running mate in Milwaukee last week, the video clip showed that "the weak Biden struggled to climb the short boarding ladder of Air Force One on his way to further isolation."

This is a bleak scene described in Washington post’s article "Behind the scenes: Biden loses control of the Democratic Party" on July 19th. A person familiar with the matter said that aides forwarded the video in frustration.

According to the report, just four months before the presidential election, Biden’s control of his party suddenly collapsed, which is unprecedented in history. Just a month ago, all these people were United behind Biden, and the mantra of former House Speaker nancy pelosi (Democrat of California) was: "Diversity is our strength. Unity is our strength. "

A source familiar with the situation told Reuters: Biden planned to continue to challenge for re-election as president until last night, but at 1: 45 pm the next day, he suddenly told his senior staff that he decided to withdraw from the election. Biden’s decision caught many White House aides off guard, and several people expressed shock at the news. Because just a few hours ago, Biden’s campaign team was still denying reports that Biden was considering withdrawing from the presidential election.

"The US presidential election has been messed up." A senior consultant who participated in the Democratic Party’s campaign for many years told The Paper that it was hard to hide his disappointment. "You can say anything, predict anything, and draw any conclusions. All in all, this country (election operation mechanism) is out of order. " However, Casey Burghardt, director of the legislative affairs program at George Washington University’s Graduate School of Political Management, recently told The Paper that if properly controlled, the (substitution) procedure can provide an opportunity for the Democratic Party to have a useful debate on its future direction and priorities, and the potential possibility is that it will result in a re-bonded and more strategic party platform.

"Many voters will be ignited by a young candidate who has a better chance of winning." He said, "Almost all Democrats will unite on the first priority: to prevent Trump from winning the second presidential term."

"Make sure he is angry and upset."

As of Saturday (20th) afternoon, 32 Democratic congressmen and four senators have publicly called on Biden not to seek re-election. Among the more than 200 Democrats in the House of Representatives and 51 Democrats in the Senate, this is still a minority. However, Democratic Party officials and party strategists generally believe that the actual number of people who want Biden to withdraw from the election is much higher.

"I’m sure he’s angry and upset." Meghan Hays, who served in the White House until 2022, told NBC that Biden understood the political reality, that is, "he is famous for not holding grudges."

As more and more news revealed that Biden would soon accept the idea of "having to withdraw from the election", The New York Times quoted a person close to Biden as saying on the 19th that in the previous three weeks, the President had insisted that almost nothing could make him withdraw from the election.

According to the report, Mike Donilon, Biden’s long-term senior adviser and one of his most loyal confidants, told him that despite the doubts of the Democratic Party and the pessimistic results of some opinion polls, the competition was still fierce, and he insisted that there was still a chance to win. The president’s family also supported him in sticking it out and pointed out that he had a tradition of overcoming difficulties and not being afraid of questioning.

However, the Democrats behind the scenes and people working in the government described the first three weeks of July as a nightmare-too unusual, too unexpected and unbelievable.

Important members of the presidential campaign team and the White House team privately said that after the disastrous debate on June 27, confidence in Biden began to waver, and the big "money owner" withheld funds and demanded changes.

Then, on a live TV broadcast on July 13th, a more terrible assassination of Trump happened. The former president "magically" escaped the assassination in the attention of the whole world-holding his fist high and his face was still dripping with blood. Biden’s poll remained stable at first, but then began to decline.

Then, when the 81-year-old president went to the election campaign to try to prove his vitality, he was infected with Covid-19 again.

Just this weekend, Biden, who is still isolated from his seaside villa in Delaware because of Covid-19’s infection, got some good news. The former President Clintons, who are still a powerful force in Democratic politics, expressed their support for him privately, and have been actively encouraging donors to support the president, and kept in touch with the White House and offered help within their capacity.

However, former President Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton supported their Democratic colleagues to become news themselves, highlighting Biden’s growing isolation in his own party.

A series of actions and policies are hard to turn the tide.

The first week after the debate didn’t go well, and Biden’s team decided to let him "go out" more.

The president participated in three interviews in succession, including the program of Lester Holt, the anchor of NBC Evening News. In the interview, he once showed a combative mood. Although he can’t suddenly look younger, Biden wants to prove his courage and determination to try his best to replace everyone’s image of being old on the night of the debate.

Within 48 hours, Biden also talked with the Congressional Asia Pacific Caucus (CAPAC), the New Democracy Party Alliance, the Congressional Progress Caucus and the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, and won some support.

The White House distributed a list of about 20 other leaders with whom the President talked on the plane or on the trip. About 75 members of Congress reiterated their support for him. "Can you hear the helicopter in the background?" Biden shouted to Reverend Al Al Sharpton on the phone as he was about to board a helicopter to Nevada to win his support. "We must move on, Al."

Sharpton is a famous American black civil rights activist and Biden’s long-term ally. His support is particularly important at all critical moments.

However, a congressman who recently took Air Force One revealed to Washington post that he only recently realized the change of the president after meeting with him many times in the past four years. Biden spoke so softly that he could hardly hear the voice across the table. Another congressman who interacted with Biden recently described him as weak but quick-thinking and seriously considered staying in office.

At the White House, Biden administration officials are also moving quickly. The policy department began to rapidly advance the long-term brewing plan, including drawing up a blueprint for the term limit of the Supreme Court; A legislative proposal has been finalized to set the ceiling of rent increase for business landlords at 5% nationwide in the United States, which may be a large-scale new federal intervention aimed at reversing the main driving factor of inflation.

Politico, an American political news website, reported in mid-July that the aides of Biden’s government had been working behind the scenes all week, showing that the inflation situation finally slowed down through opinion polls and economic data, and appeasing wavering supporters. They hoped that the president’s appearance at the high-profile NATO summit would show his work in strengthening the alliance system.

Members of Congress, allies and presidential aides pay close attention to Biden’s risk points at the press conference. Some of his gaffes provided material for critics, including calling Ukrainian President Zelensky "President Putin" before the press conference, and then correcting and joking about the mistake. Later, he called Vice President Harris "Vice President Trump".

Biden seems to feel the pressure and his temper has become grumpy. The New York Times reported on the 17th that on Saturday (July 13th), Biden lashed out at Representative Jason Crowe of Colorado during a video call with moderate Democrats in the House of Representatives. Crowe, who served in the army and won a medal in Iraq, questioned Biden’s ability to impress voters.

Emotion within the team changed from regret to complaint.

Some people are still cheering, trying to blow the assembly number. "Keep faith." Andrew Bates, senior deputy press secretary of the White House, posted on social media on the 18th.

In the West Wing of the White House (the office of President spin doctor), Washington post’s in-depth report reveals that the loyalty principle that has long accompanied Biden’s actions seems to be disintegrating. According to a Biden administration official familiar with the situation, some consultants turned their attention from planning their second term to planning how to lock in the policy victory "before Trump took office". Other officials said that more efforts are still being put into planning the future agenda.

Among those who are committed to Biden’s campaign, the atmosphere is also deteriorating: they are panicked in private and don’t care about anything.

The crisis seems to be intensifying on all fronts. Democrats are struggling in key States, Biden’s support rate has dropped sharply in all swing States, and long-term donors have warned that Biden’s financial support has dried up.

"The presidential campaign is not over yet. They have no money. " A Democratic Party donation consultant said, "Usually, grassroots funds are expensive and need a lot of (donor) funds to raise these funds, so it is crazy for them to use grassroots funds to make up for the high (donor)."

A senior aide to Biden said that in the campaign team, senior staff were increasingly worried that Biden might lose Virginia. The last time the state supported a Republican presidential candidate was 20 years ago, and now it is usually no longer regarded as a battlefield for presidential elections.

A campaign aide told Washington post that junior and even some senior staff knew nothing about how Biden wanted to advance the campaign. Text messages circulated among Capitol Hill, government officials and others, trying to figure out what happened.

"What’s interesting is that suddenly there seem to be many’ Biden insiders’, whose voices are exactly the same as those of those who blindly quoted and doubted us in successive victories for five years." Bates said.

Some consultants accuse senior assistants of "no longer being loyal, selfish and ambitious" without evidence. A few days later, these slanders even appeared on MSNBC’s "Good Morning Joe" morning news program, which was Biden’s favorite TV talk show.

The New York Times reported that Democrats used to feel sorry for Biden. Although they hoped that he would leave the stage gracefully, now they are increasingly resentful of him, complaining that the president they admired was arrogant and selfish. They feel that he will not only return the White House to Trump, but also drag down other candidates of the Democratic Party.

The call for him to step down is getting louder and louder, not from marginal figures, but from people in the Democratic Party who have been very important to him in the past few years.

The American media found that Biden spent more time with his two longest-serving and most loyal advisers: senior campaign adviser Mike Donilon and presidential adviser Steve Ricchetti. They think their professional knowledge is more popular, and both think that opinion polls have become less meaningful.

The internally monitored poll data comforted the Democratic campaign team. The data shows that most of the supporters Biden lost since the day of the presidential debate are unlikely to vote for Trump, which indicates that they may change their minds.

"I think he bought us some time at the NATO press conference." A campaign consultant revealed to the media that many campaign assistants thought that Biden gave a series of stable and powerful answers after watching the press conference, which eliminated people’s concerns about his health and demonstrated his foreign policy talents. "That night, everyone breathed a sigh of relief. If things don’t go well, I think we all think things will end in 24 hours. "

But the most senior American party political observer can’t deny that no one can force him to submit. "It’s just pure emotion. This is not a strong data-driven action. " A Democratic strategist said that the fate of the Democratic Party depends on the intuition of a person who has been committed to national politics for the past 52 years.