BURSTDemocratic Party officials and White House staffers were well aware of President Biden’s frailties ahead of his choice to end his ill-fated reelection bid last summer, according to exclusive excerpts of a new book released to The Hill.
The excerpt from “Fight: Inside the Wildest Battle for the White House” by The Hill senior political correspondent Amie Parnes and NBC News senior national politics reporter Jonathan Allen reveals extensive steps to cover up the signs of Biden’s aging and contingency planning if Biden chose to step aside or even died in office.
“It shows what we had to do to prepare with the unique circumstances we had, which was an eighty-plus-year-old president who was running,” one party official who was involved in the secret discussions said, according to Parnes and Allen.
Concerns around Biden’s age dominated much of his reelection campaign from its launch in April 2023 to its end in July 2024 following a disastrous debate performance.
Party and administration officials repeatedly downplayed these worries, insisting that Biden was fully capable of winning and serving another four-year term in office. Despite Biden’s occasional public stumbles, they sought to assure the public that behind closed doors, Biden remained sharp and fully in command.
But behind closed doors, officials had expressed their own anxieties about Biden’s abilities well before he took the stage with Trump last June.
“Publicly, Democrats scoffed at Republican claims that Biden wasn’t up to the job,” the authors wrote. “But privately, some of them worried all along that they were putting too much stock in an old man who, at best, had long since lost his fastball.”
Parnes and Allen reported that Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.), a 2020 presidential candidate who faced off against Biden on the primary debate stage, first became concerned about Biden’s cognitive abilities in June 2023, when they spoke at the annual White House picnic for members of Congress.
Swalwell had not been invited to the White House often, like most members of Congress, but when Biden and Swalwell came face to face, Biden didn’t immediately recognize the congressman, according to the book.
Swalwell needed to note personal details to remind Biden of who he is.
At the G-7 summit in Italy preceding the debate, Biden was tired when he arrived and in most of the sessions, a Biden aide told Parnes and Allen.
To cover up the physical signs of Biden’s aging, a make-up artist met with him in the morning when he traveled. The artist also covered up aging signs before Zoom calls with Biden’s aides.
Biden consistently made these make-up appointments, but he sometimes canceled the briefings that were to follow.
After the debate with Trump, Biden needed fluorescent tape to guide him through a fundraiser at New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy’s (D) house and needed a teleprompter to speak to just a small group of people. But he still frequently trailed off during his remarks.
Biden’s closest aides remained behind the president’s plan to run for reelection, Parnes and Allen reported. White House counselor Steve Richetti and Mike Donilon, an operative who had worked on Biden’s messaging for decades, were both “one hundred percent in,” according to one Biden ally.
First lady Jill Biden was “a thousand percent” behind it.
“At the end of the day, I don’t think anyone in that inner circle was presenting the president any contrary advice that this thing is not going to be easy or maybe this is not the best thing for the Democratic Party,” they said.
One friend of Biden and former President Obama called the choice for Biden to seek reelection the “original sin” on the 2024 election, putting the blame on the president’s family and close aides for not advising him to forego a reelection bid.
Even with Biden’s allies steadfast, plans started to come together behind the scenes in 2023 to prepare for the event that another candidate needed to take over from Biden should he not seek reelection or even die.
A Harris aide carried a spreadsheet of Republican federal judges that Trump hadn’t appointed so if Harris needed to be sworn in on short notice, it could be from someone seen as more credible to Republicans.
The aide didn’t inform Harris of the spreadsheet before he left her camp in January 2023, but he told his colleagues that he should be notified immediately if something happened to Biden, as he had a communications strategy prepared.
After the debate, Harris needed to figure out what she would say about the performance. Harris didn’t find the campaign’s talking points of Biden having a “slow start, stronger finish” to be credible.
Instead, she focused on homing in on a contrast between Biden and Trump.
“It was a slow start. That’s obvious to everyone. I’m not going to debate that point,” Harris told CNN’s Anderson Cooper. “I’m talking about the choice in November. I’m talking about one of the most important elections in our collective lifetime.”