Joe Biden “totally fucked us” by leaving it too late to drop out of the 2024 US presidential election, a former top campaign aide to Kamala Harris has told the authors of a new book.
David Plouffe, who was manager of Barack Obama’s winning 2008 campaign and a senior adviser in his White House, was drafted in to help Harris’s bid for president after the declining Biden withdrew from the race last summer.
Harris’s 107-day sprint against Donald Trump was “a fucking nightmare”, Plouffe is quoted as saying by authors Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson in Original Sin: President Biden’s Decline, Its Cover-up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again. A copy was obtained by the Guardian.
“And it’s all Biden,” Plouffe adds, reflecting on the former US president’s decisions to run for re-election and then to cling on for more than three weeks after a catastrophic debate performance against Trump raised questions about his mental acuity and age. “He totally fucked us.”
Plouffe, along with some other former Obama staffers, has previously been critical of Biden and his role in the Democratic defeat. In the wake of Harris’s loss he posted a message on X – formerly known as Twitter – that the Harris campaign had begun in a “deep hole”. He later deleted his account.
The book describes how Plouffe had received calls from donors worried about Biden’s diminishing energy, cognitive skills and ability to deliver a speech. He in turn pressed the White House and Democratic party if they felt sure that the then president could win another election and was repeatedly told he could.
But Tapper, chief Washington correspondent for CNN, and Thompson, a national political correspondent for Axios, spoke to around 200 people for the book, including members of Congress and White House and campaign insiders. Some had been sounding the alarm about Biden’s mental acuity and about desperate efforts by his close staff and allies to hide the extent of his deterioration.
One senior aide, who quit the White House because they did not think Biden should run, admits to the authors that “we attempted to shield him from his own staff so many people didn’t realize the extent of the decline beginning in 2023”.
“I love Joe Biden. When it comes to decency, there are few in politics like him. Still, it was a disservice to the country and to the party for his family and advisers to allow him to run again.”
A prominent Democratic strategist says of Biden’s determination to seek re-election: “It was an abomination. He stole an election from the Democratic party; he stole it from the American people.”
Original Sin is one of several eagerly awaited books about the 2024 election and an alleged White House conspiracy.
Biden, 82, seemingly tried to preempt its revelations last week with media appearances on BBC Radio 4’s Today program and ABC’s talkshow The View. Biden has signed with Creative Artists Agency for representation and hired communications strategist Chris Meagher to help burnish his public reputation.
But the 27 June 2024 debate in Atlanta was no anomaly, the book argues. Since at least 2022 Biden has been increasingly prone to lose his train of thought and struggle to remember the names of top aides. His speeches can be incoherent and difficult to hear. When he proved incapable of delivering a two-minute video address without stumbling, aides filmed him with two cameras so the edit would be less obvious.
Original Sin tells how prominent figures tried to intervene in various ways. Obama visited the White House in 2023 and warned Biden: “Just make sure you can win the race.”
Ari Emanuel, a Hollywood powerbroker and significant Democratic donor, yelled at longtime Biden ally Ron Klain: “Joe Biden cannot run for re-election! He needs to drop out! He can’t win! What’s the plan B?” Klain admitted there was no plan B.
And Chuck Schumer, the Democratic leader in the Senate, confronted the president after the debate last July at his home in Rehoboth, Delaware, and appealed to his desire to preserve his legacy. He warned Biden that, he if stayed in the race and lost to Trump then 50 years of “amazing, beautiful work goes out the window. But it’s worse than that – you will go down in American history as one of the darkest figures.”
On their way out, the book reports, Biden put his hands on Schumer’s shoulders and told him: “You have bigger balls than anyone I’ve ever met.”
Biden stepped aside on 21 July and quickly endorsed Harris, but it was too late, the authors contend. He had already helped usher in the fate that he most wanted to avoid: the return of Trump to the White House.
