WASHINGTON – Internal drama. Leaks. Second divination. The pressure and chaos that have set in since Joe Biden’s disastrous performance in the debate are causing fissures in a White House that until now has been marked by discipline and loyalty.
For more than three years, the Biden administration has mostly been a restrained and sober operation, defined more by an insistence on policy showmanship and an avoidance of palace intrigue. Aides generally kept any criticism of their boss or their work out of the public eye. Not lately, though.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre reflected Tuesday on the extraordinary moment for the president and his team, as questions about the 81-year-old’s age and mental capacity threaten to torpedo his re-election dreams. “It’s been an unprecedented time,” she said of the president’s scrutiny. “We are facing a new moment that has never existed before.”
Biden shaky performance in June 27th debate led to an unusually public blame game, leaks of private phone calls between the president and Democrats and questions about your child Hunter Biden’s presence at the White House. This prompted current White House staffers to anonymously express their concerns about Biden’s ability to do the job and even led to the departure of a radio journalist after details emerged that the Biden campaign had fed her and another reporter questions .
Not to mention all the drama playing at the Capitolwhere a handful of House Democrats have publicly called for Biden to step aside and there are closed-door discussions by others about whether to publicly speak out against the president as party leaders try to subjugate members.
Biden has has been adamant that it will not abandon the raceand the chorus of criticism may be subsiding, but it remains unclear whether the White House drama was a momentary lapse or whether it will continue as the nation approaches the 2024 elections.
Andrew Bates, senior deputy press secretary, said Biden “returned compassion, honesty and competence to the Oval Office” and built the most diverse administration in history.
“As President Biden has fought and delivered the strongest record of any modern administration, there hasn’t been a single week in which Washington hasn’t doubted him and his team,” Bates said. and know that the key is to focus on the work and the American people, not the noise.”
The restrained vibe in the White House under Biden was intentional – he wanted his administration to be seen as a return to normal government operations after the Trump White House leakwhen half-baked policies ended up on the front pages and details of private meetings appeared in public sometimes while they were still in progress.
It also reflected the deep loyalty of Biden’s inner circle, where many top advisers have worked with the president for decades.
Biden’s debate performance drew a surprising amount of public criticism from some of his biggest fans, including former White House communications director Kate Bedingfield, who participated in a cable TV panel immediately after the showdown.
“It was a really disappointing debate performance from Joe Biden. I don’t think there is any other way to cut it. His biggest problem was proving to the American people that he had energy, stamina – and he didn’t do that,” she told CNN.
After Biden’s ABC interview, intended in part to show that he can speak off the cuff, former White House communications official Michael LaRosa posted withering public criticism: “Just when you thought the president’s communications teams had lost all credibility…they are hitting rock bottom and determined to continue humiliating the president and the first family with misguided and BAD media relations practices that erode their standing day after day.”
Privately, aides and allies were quietly shaken by Biden’s debate performance and questioned whether the campaign was salvageable, especially as the negative reviews continued to pour in.
At the Camp David the weekend after the debate, Biden’s family – particularly Hunter Biden and first lady Jill Biden – encouraged the president to stay in the race and questioned whether his team had adequately prepared him. (Biden, for his part, has firmly said that the debate debacle was “no one’s fault but mine.”)
Not long after, the presence of Hunter Biden — awaiting sentencing for three felony convictions in a gun case — in the White House was unsettling for some people, who worried about his influence over his father, according to two Democrats close to the White House who spoke to The Associated Press on condition anonymity to discuss the sensitive subject.
And there have been questions about Biden’s long-term strategy to limit public interactions, especially with journalists, under a mandate led by senior aides. Biden has given fewer interviews than his modern predecessors and held fewer press conferences than any president since Ronald Reagan.
Bates said the strategy “is and has been for the American people to hear directly from Joe Biden.” He noted that Biden gave an interview Monday on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” answered questions from reporters more than 580 times and travels the country speaking directly to people.
White House officials recently expressed their concerns about the president and his storytelling skills disseminated by the national media. One employee who raised the alarm at The New York Times seemed a little “Anonymous”, the Trump official who signaled discontent with Trump’s presidency in a New York Times op-ed and later went public with his complaints.
“This is not like the last government where we tried to find out who is talking or leaking, this is not something we do here,” Jean-Pierre said when asked about the official’s comments. “Everyone has their opinion.”
She said she has not heard anyone express criticism like those appearing in the publications.
In an effort to boost staff morale, Biden Chief of Staff Jeff Zients urged White House aides last week during an all-staff meeting to tune out the “noise” and focus on the task of to rule.
There were also public mistakes. Jean-Pierre told reporters Biden had not been seen by his doctor since his physical exam, but the president later told campaign workers in a private call that he had been seen by his doctor after feeling ill upon returning from back-to-back grueling trips abroad.
White House aides refused for days to explain repeated visits to the White House by a neurologist that sparked speculation that Biden was receiving treatment, and Jean-Pierre misspoke when speaking about the matter on Tuesday.
On Sunday, a radio presenter left her job after news that she and another interviewer on a different station asked Biden questions that were provided to them by the campaign.
The interviews were intended to be part of an effort to restore faith in Biden’s ability not just to govern over the next four years but to run a successful campaign, but the revelation only increased criticism that he could not handle questioning improvised.
___
Associated Press writers Aamer Madhani and Zeke Miller contributed to this report.
