Donald Trump has been funneling campaign cash to his extensive legal bills for several years now. The Trump campaign is facing FEC inquiries and it will probably take years to untangle the financial mess. This is why Trump chose JD Vance as his running mate: Vance came with built-in financing from Peter Thiel and the Nazi tech bros. Vance was not Trump’s top choice whatsoever, and I absolutely believe that the Trump campaign did the bare minimum when it came to vetting Vance in the first place. They just did whatever would get them the most money. Of course, their choices were also predicated on President Biden staying in the race. Now that he’s dropped out and Trump is facing off against a brilliant and tough prosecutor named Kamala Harris, suddenly MAGA world has figured out that their goose is cooked. Hilariously, they’re now wondering if there’s any way to drop Vance.

Republicans may be starting to second-guess their party’s pick for vice president. Much of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, including the decision to tap Ohio Senator J.D. Vance as his running mate, was structured around attacks on President Joe Biden. But then Biden announced Sunday that he was withdrawing from the presidential race altogether.

Trump campaign officials acknowledged that Trump selected the inexperienced Vance, charged with all his techno-authoritarian ideas, to boost support among their own base, not extend a hand to swing voters, according to The Atlantic. Vance was a symbol of the Trump team’s assuredness that they would win in 2024. Come Sunday, that assuredness appears to be shrinking.

“Most striking thing I heard from Trump allies yesterday was the second-guessing of JD Vance—a selection, they acknowledged, that was [born] of cockiness, meant to run up margins with the base in a blowout rather than persuade swing voters in a nail-biter,” Atlantic staff writer Tim Alberta, who had written the piece about the panicking Trump campaign, posted on X (formerly Twitter).

Trump decried Biden’s decision to drop out in a post on Truth Social, writing that his team would have to “start all over again” and asking to be reimbursed for the cost. At the same time, Vance has set straight to work, calling for Biden to resign from the presidency.

[From The New Republic]

I will give Vance credit for one very small thing – last week, when he became Trump’s running mate, VP Harris’s office made some statement about how Harris is looking forward to debating Vance, and Vance’s reply was something like “bold of you to assume that we’ll debate each other given the disarray in your party.” Dude was right. He won’t debate VP Harris. He’ll debate whatever white dude gets chosen by Kamala Harris as her running mate. As for Trump world rethinking their Vance pick… lmao. They really are stuck with him. That being said, Thiel and the tech Nazis have Trump’s cojones in a vice grip and there really won’t be a serious effort to push Vance off the ticket.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images.

Barack Obama’s former staffers played a big role in the intraparty coup to oust President Biden from the 2024 race. It reminds me a bit of how many of Obama’s former staffers talked out of both sides of their mouths about Hillary Clinton in 2016, only it feels like President Biden and President Obama’s relationship is not in a good place and may never recover. Many sources have said outright that Biden feels betrayed by party leaders and by Obama. Many sources have indicated that Obama has barely been in communication with Biden or his people in recent months. When President Biden withdrew from the race on Sunday, Obama offered a tribute to Biden’s decades of public service but Obama did not endorse VP Kamala Harris. That too has irritated a lot of Democrats and Dem activists, who wonder about the extent of Obama’s role in the party coup.

NewsNation’s Kellie Meyer tweeted yesterday that Obama will not endorse anyone before the nominee is chosen, and he did not endorse Kamala Harris or anyone else because “Obama believes he will be uniquely positioned to help unite the party once we have a nominee, lift-up that candidate, and do everything he can to get that candidate elected in November.” I recognize this as an effort to turn down the temperature on the ratf–king allegations, and I’m sure Obama has been getting some calls too, especially as the party has already enthusiastically coalesced around VP Kamala Harris. Suddenly, Obama and his people are very chatty about Obama’s perspective, and they even contacted the New York Times:

Many of the marquee names in Democratic politics began quickly lining up behind Vice President Kamala Harris on Sunday, but one towering presence in the party held back: Barack Obama. The former president has not yet endorsed Ms. Harris; in fact, he did not mention her once in an affectionate — if tautly written — tribute to President Biden that was posted on Medium shortly after he decided to bow out on Sunday.

Republicans interpreted that as a snub. But people close to Mr. Obama, who has positioned himself as an impartial elder statesman above intraparty machinations, said not to read too much into it — and had no alternate candidate in mind when he made the decision not to immediately endorse Ms. Harris.

Mr. Obama adopted an identical stance four years ago when Mr. Biden’s aides pressured him to endorse early in the Democratic primaries before Senator Bernie Sanders dropped out. (Mr. Obama’s favored phrase back then was “I don’t want to thumb the scale.”) Endorsing too early now would also be a political mistake — fueling criticism that Ms. Harris’s nomination, should it come, was a coronation rather than the best possible consensus under rushed circumstances, they said.

Instead, Mr. Obama sees his role as helping to quickly “unite the party once we have a nominee,” a person familiar with his thinking said.

But there are other more personal considerations, exacerbating Mr. Obama’s innate caution. Mr. Biden is a deeply prideful man, and he has never fully forgiven Mr. Obama for quietly backing former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in the 2016 campaign. Mr. Biden still believes he could have beaten former President Donald J. Trump that year if given the chance. Nor was Mr. Biden pleased when Mr. Obama told him that he should consider sitting out 2020, too, people in his circle have said. Mr. Obama wanted Sunday to be about Mr. Biden, a celebration of his accomplishments — and does not feel pressured to act hastily, according to a former White House official who speaks with the former president regularly.

[From The NY Times]

This reads to me like Obama is in damage-control mode because he’s realized that his public reticence and private maneuvers have not gone down well with the party. As I’ve been saying, this whole episode has left a bad taste in a lot of Democrats’ mouths. Even if you make the argument that President Biden had to be convinced to drop out, did the Obama allies, ratf–kers and Dem Congressional leaders really believe that the best way to achieve that goal was torching a sitting Democratic president publicly and spending three weeks advocating for the disenfranchisement of Democratic voters at the behest of big-money donors?

The fact that Obama is making his endorsement all about his own importance is the wrong move too – the party is quickly coalescing behind VP Harris, it’s July, there are only 104 days until the election. Instead of unifying quickly and ensuring that Democrats look like they’re more than ready to take on Trump and the MAGA cult (after literally overshadowing the Republican National Convention with their party coup bullsh-t), Obama is navel-gazing and dithering.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Backgrid.

VP Kamala Harris is a stepmother to her husband’s two kids (who are now adults). She is also an attractive woman who dated men before she married Doug Emhoff in 2014. This is the big character assassination plot of the Republican Party: Kamala Harris dated men, she was hot stuff in the 1990s and she’s a stepmother. Donald Trump’s running mate JD Vance has been particularly focused on Kamala Harris’s lack of biological children for several years now, and he’s referred to her as a “childless cat lady” several times.

Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio), Donald Trump’s vice presidential pick, said in 2021 that Vice President Kamala Harris is one of the “childless cat ladies” who is “miserable” with her life and has no direct stake in America because she is not a mom.

In a speech at an Intercollegiate Studies Institute conference, Vance specifically named Harris in a tirade against the “childless left” who have “no physical commitment to the future of this country.” He lumped the vice president in with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg.

“Why is this just a normal fact of … life, for the leaders of our country to be people who don’t have a personal and direct stake in it via their own offspring?” Vance said.

Days later, the Ohio Republican doubled down on his attacks on childless Democrats in an interview with then-Fox News’ Tucker Carlson.

“We’re effectively run in this country, via the Democrats, via our corporate oligarchs, by a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they’ve made and so they want to make the rest of the country miserable too,” Vance said.

“It’s just a basic fact: You look at Kamala Harris, Pete Buttigieg, AOC, the entire future of the Democrats is controlled by people without children,” he said. “And how does it make any sense that we’ve turned our country over to people that don’t have a direct stake in it.”

[From HuffPo]

There are millions of Americans, both men and women, who are childfree by choice or by circumstance and we vote. We have the time to vote. We have the disposable income to donate to the Democratic Party. As a childfree woman with cats, I loathe the suggestion that I don’t have a “personal stake” in the future of the country. I have fewer rights as a woman than my mother, and that’s because of Donald Trump and his MAGA cult, and as a woman… I want to ensure that girls and women have their reproductive rights restored so they are not handmaidens in the Confederacy of Trumplandia. And again, arguing that stepparents are NOT parents is kind of wild. It’s a crazy stance to take for Republicans.

JD Vance says women who haven’t given birth like Kamala Harris are “childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives,” and have “no direct stake” in America. pic.twitter.com/3DJY3pQTGe

— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) July 22, 2024

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images.

While there’s mixed reporting on how it went down exactly, I 100% believe that the Democrats organizing the effort to push President Biden out of the race had zero plans for what would happen next if they were successful, with a little over 100 days before the election. This was one of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s big issues too: if you force out President Biden, what’s the plan, how will the party coalesce in such a short amount of time? I strongly believe that once President Biden made the decision to step aside, he only did so if he could endorse Kamala Harris on his own terms and signal to the party that VP Harris is his heiress, that she inherits his entire campaign apparatus, that he was always a bridge to an eventual President Kamala Harris. That was never what the Dem ratf–kers wanted, as we quickly witnessed in real time.

Speaking of ratf–kers, even before President Biden dropped out of the race, former speaker Nancy Pelosi made comments to other California Democrats that if and when Biden dropped out, there should be a “competitive process” in an open primary… in July and August. Like, that was Pelosi’s big political instinct at work, that Dems should be in disarray for weeks ahead of the DNC and likely during the whole convention. Pres. Biden announced his withdrawal on Sunday (with Pelosi’s knife still in his back) and in the same breath, he endorsed VP Harris. Pelosi didn’t expect that. Her first statement on Biden’s withdrawal did not offer any endorsement for VP Harris or anyone else. Then, 24 hours after Biden’s withdrawal, suddenly Pelosi no longer favors a “competitive process.”

Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Monday endorsed Kamala Harris to replace President Biden at the top of the Democratic ticket, calling her “brilliantly astute” and saying that she is the best person to defeat former President Donald J. Trump in the fall.

“It is with immense pride and limitless optimism for our country’s future that I endorse Vice President Kamala Harris for president of the United States,” Ms. Pelosi wrote in a statement. “My enthusiastic support for Kamala Harris for president is official, personal and political.”

The statement by Ms. Pelosi, who had earlier said she would favor a competitive process rather than a coronation of Ms. Harris, was the most significant in a rapidly growing number of high-profile endorsements as Ms. Harris moved swiftly to cement her position as the new face of her party. Ms. Pelosi urged her colleagues to get behind Ms. Harris, saying “we must unify and charge forward to resoundingly defeat Donald Trump.”

Ms. Harris’s campaign announced on Monday that it had raised $81 million in her first 24 hours as a presidential candidate. And she made her first public appearance since Mr. Biden dropped his re-election bid and endorsed her, praising Mr. Biden’s “deep love of our country” during a morning event at the White House.

She has so far scooped up endorsements from would-be challengers, including Governors JB Pritzker of Illinois, Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, Andy Beshear of Kentucky, Wes Moore of Maryland, Tim Walz of Minnesota and Tony Evers of Wisconsin. Several of them have been talked about as possible running mates.

[From The NY Times]

It sounds like Pelosi has been doing a lot of math lately. She must have realized that the ratf–king coalition left her holding the bag (a bag with a bloody knife in it) and that her legacy was on the line as well. This is something Pelosi, Barack Obama, Chuck Schumer, and the Obama staffers/podbros didn’t understand: that it means a lot to Democrats that Biden threw his full support to VP Harris, and that she is the one chosen as Biden’s heiress. The fact that a steady stream of would-be Democratic presidential candidates actually said “no, we’re supporting Kamala Harris” ruined the ratf–king fantasy of an “open primary” in July and August. That being said, as of this writing, Obama, Schumer and Rep. Hakeem Jeffries still have not endorsed VP Harris. Almost every other elected Democrat has though, including almost every Dem governor in the country? She’ll likely choose one of those Dem governors as her running mate.

With immense pride and limitless optimism for our country’s future, I endorse Vice President Kamala Harris for President of the United States. I have full confidence that she will lead us to victory in November.
-NP pic.twitter.com/vBwv602GuR

— Nancy Pelosi (@TeamPelosi) July 22, 2024

Photos courtesy of Cover Images.

When I posted the new birthday portrait of Prince George yesterday, I grabbed what turned out to be the cropped image on Prince William and Kate’s Instagram account. The image on the Kensington Palace Twitter account wasn’t cropped as tightly, and you can see both of George’s hands and wrists. Look there, the eleven-year-old kid is wearing what appears to be a friendship bracelet or some kind of woven bracelet of some variety.

People Magazine suggests that George has possibly gotten into friendship bracelets via Princess Charlotte, because Charlotte is a major Swiftie. Notably, Prince William took George and Charlotte to one of Taylor Swift’s London concerts, and while they were ensconced in a VIP balcony area, I bet somewhere along the line, there were some friendship bracelets swapped with some of the other youths. So, maybe. Or maybe Charlotte just gave her brother one of her bracelets, or maybe one of George’s school friends made it for him. Who knows? One thing I will say is that the bracelet reminded me of Prince Harry, who wore bracelets and necklaces from his teenage years through adulthood. Harry loves some casual, cool accessories. So of course the Daily Beast’s Royalist column invoked Harry… but in the weirdest way possible: “Prince George’s Elegant Rebuke to Critics (Harry) of a Royal Childhood.”

Gone are the scalloped collars, short trousers, and knee-length socks that characterized so many of his childhood photographs. Instead, George, his hair neatly pushed to one side, wears a chic dark suit and a white shirt open at the neck.

However, in an unprecedentedly casual touch for a formal portrait, George is also seen wearing that perennial adolescent and pre-adolescent favorite, a handwoven bracelet on his left arm.

The telling personal detail shows photographer Princess Kate’s effortless mastery of the casual, common touch, the simple beach-side favorite of so many children eloquently pushing back against narratives arguing that the Windsor children are being brought up under unacceptable pressure.

Chief among those who have made the case that growing up in the royal bubble is harmful to children is Prince William’s estranged brother, Prince Harry. In his memoir, Spare, Harry said: “William and I have talked about it once or twice, and he has made it very clear to me that his kids are not my responsibility.”

[From The Daily Beast]

Yeah, as I said, the visual of George embracing the same kind of accessory his Uncle Harry wears is not giving “take that, Harry!” It actually looks like someone wanted to draw a visual comparison TO Harry. That’s all I’ll say.

Photos courtesy of the Princess of Wales/Kensington Palace, KP’s social media and Taylor Swift’s social media.

Here are some photos of Vice President Kamala Harris at the White House on Monday. This was her first public appearance since President Biden dropped his re-election bid and threw his support and endorsement to her. It cannot be overstated that the “palace coup” to ratf–k Joe Biden did not anticipate Pres. Biden endorsing VP Harris and Harris quickly emerging as a fundraising powerhouse and consensus Democratic nominee.

VP Harris’s first public appearance since all of that was at a reception/event for the 2023-2024 NCAA Championship teams. After that event, VP Harris and Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff traveled to Delaware, to the Biden Campaign Headquarters, which Harris has now inherited. Those are her people, her campaign staffers now. She and Doug gave wonderful speeches, and President Biden called in to give her support once again. Which is how this happened:

President Biden to VP Harris: “I’m watching you, kid. I’m watching you. I love you”
pic.twitter.com/q61AUBAi7L

— Republicans against Trump (@RpsAgainstTrump) July 22, 2024

“I’m watching you, kid. I love you.” Y’all, I have cried too many times in the past week. President Biden is an American hero and everything that is happening with and around VP Kamala Harris is incredible. Speaking of, you know how President Biden held a huge delegate count, enough to ensure that he would be the Democratic presidential nominee at the convention? When he bowed out, there could have been a delegate free-for-all. There was not. VP Harris quickly worked the phones, and I imagine President Biden did too. Less than 48 hours after Pres. Biden’s withdrawal, Kamala Harris has the delegates to become the Dem nominee:

Vice President Kamala Harris moved swiftly to assert herself as the de facto Democratic nominee for president on Monday, her first full day as a candidate, as virtually every potential remaining rival bowed out and she clinched the support of enough delegates to win the nomination.

The Associated Press said late Monday that Ms. Harris had secured the backing of more than the 1,976 delegates needed to capture the nomination in the first round of voting. The pledged support is not binding until the delegates cast their votes, which party officials said would take place between Aug. 1 and Aug. 7.

“When I announced my campaign for president, I said I intended to go out and earn this nomination,” Ms. Harris said in a statement. “Tonight, I am proud to have secured the broad support needed to become our party’s nominee.” She added, “I look forward to formally accepting the nomination soon.”

[From The NY Times]

This is amazing and once again, this was not guaranteed. Nancy Pelosi, Barack Obama, Chuck Schumer, those douchebag podbros, they all wanted Dems-in-disarray, they wanted a fight over delegates and a messy convention. VP Harris said nope, we’re going to finish this in 48 hours. Something else which should not be underestimated is how many Democrats are impressed by VP Harris’s immediate fundraising successes. In one day, the Harris campaign raised over $100 million. That is record-breaking. As is the sudden influx of support for VP Harris. She’s not only the presumptive nominee, she already has coattails.

This needs to be a campaign ad:

VP: I was a courtroom prosecutor. In those roles I took on perpetrators of all kinds. Predators who abused women. Fraudsters who ripped off consumers. Cheaters who broke the rules for their own gain. So hear me when I say I know Donald Trump’s type. pic.twitter.com/eRpjxwJlOc

— Acyn (@Acyn) July 22, 2024

Photos courtesy of Cover Images.

It’s just been announced this morning: Angelina Jolie is going to Venice!! I mean, I hope she’s going to Venice, because Pablo Larrain’s Maria has been accepted into the Venice Film Festival’s in-competition line-up. Maria is Larrain’s latest bio-pic of a famous and complicated woman, this time Maria Callas, with Angelina starring as Callas. Maria will compete against Todd Phillips’ Joker: Folie à Deux, Pedro Almodovar’s The Room Next Door, Luis Ortega’s Kill the Jockey and many others. I seriously hope Angelina gears up and shows up in Venice.

Unfortunately, there might be some complications in Venice. Venice organizers have also added Jon Watts’ Wolfs to their out-of-competition line-up. Wolfs is the dumb buddy-comedy starring that ratf–ker George Clooney and his good buddy Brad Pitt. The Hollywood Reporter previewed this potential situation last month, that Clooney would want Wolfs to premiere in Venice and the two premieres (Wolfs and Maria) would cause some issues. The festival better do everything to ensure that Angelina gets prioritized and that the two premieres are several days apart.

Meanwhile, some more film festival news for Angelina: her directorial effort, Without Blood, will premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival in September. Without Blood stars Salma Hayek and Demián Bichir, and Angelina directed it before the actors and writers strikes last year. So we’ll get Angelina in Toronto too! What a year.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Backgrid.

Forbes has officially called it: Bruce Springsteen, first son of New Jersey, is now a billionaire. $1.1 billion, to be exact, according to Forbes’ conservative valuation of The Boss. The biggest single contributor to this fortune is undoubtedly the $500 million Bruce got for the sale of the masters and rights to his music in 2021. But he also recently had a hit Broadway show, high-grossing 2023 tour, and is working with producers to adapt a bestselling novel — about the making of 1982 album Nebraska — into a film (starring Jeremy Allen White as a young Bruce, no less). At 74, The Boss is still plenty busy! People Mag did a roundup of all the fruitful gigs that helped carry Bruce across the billionaire finish line:

Bruce Springsteen has reached a new milestone in his career!

The legendary hitmaker, 74, is now a billionaire, according to a new report from Forbes. The publication recently updated his net worth valuation with a “conservative” estimate of $1.1 billion.

Reps for Springsteen did not immediately respond to PEOPLE’s request for comment.

The “Glory Days” singer previously touched on what he believes to be the secret to his success in Deliver Me From Nowhere, Warren Zanes’ 2023 book about the 1982 album Nebraska. “I was into crafting an identity that was very, very personal to me as a man,” he explained. “I wanted to connect that identity with the very big picture of the country at large… So I needed people who were going to be willing to go in as deep as I needed and was willing to go myself.”

In developing a unique, yet familiar identity through his music that continues to resonate with legions of fans to this day, Springsteen earned himself accolades including 20 Grammys, an Oscar, two Golden Globes, a Tony Award and placements in both the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the Songwriters Hall of Fame.

Some of the singer’s other career highs include releasing a No. 1 New York Times bestselling memoir, helming 236 sold-out Broadway performances and earning a Kennedy Center Honor as well as the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

“The act of performing is psychologically centering,” Springsteen told CBS News in 2019. “And when you come off, you’ve had some experience that contextualizes your life. Why you’re here, what you do, who you love, how you love and approach your work. I’m lucky that I work with my friends alongside me. There’s no other job where the same people you work with at 18… 16 in some cases, that you work with when you’re 70.”

Springsteen has made several savvy business moves in recent years, including the sale of his entire music catalog for $500 million in 2021.

In 2023, Pollstar reported that Springsteen’s tour alongside The E-Street Band brought in an average gross of $3,961,273 with a total of 673,277 tickets sold.

Decades into his career, Springsteen is still making plenty of moves creatively. Most recently, he released a collaborative track with Zach Bryan titled “Sandpaper” as a part of the latter’s new album The Great American Bar Scene. The singer is also the focus of an upcoming biopic based on Deliver Me From Nowhere that’ll star The Bear actor Jeremy Allen White.

[From People]

Since People listed his Oscar, Tony, Grammy, and Golden Globe awards, I had to check about any Emmys. Bruce has been nominated three times, but no wins. He may be a billionaire, but he still hasn’t locked up the full EGOT!! Not to worry, I have every reason to believe Bruce will tie up the loose ends. He seems like the kind of artist who will be compelled to keep doing some form of creative work until it is physically impossible for him to do so. While he could just take his riches and ride through the mansions of glory, he’s still writing, collaborating, producing, and performing as he can, even if he’s no longer a tramp like us.

But since Bruce has reached rarified billionaire status, I have a request: he’s already bought up all the vintage ponies for his hometown Asbury’s Park carousel. I learned of this last summer when I took a mini, solo beach vacation. As I understand it, though, Bruce has acquired the ponies so the town can revive the carousel. Um, Bruce, not to be a moocher, but how about helping AP out to finish the whole project? I wanna take a spin on a vintage carousel pony! Baby I was born to ride!!

photos credit: IMAGO/Peter Hartenfeser / Avalon, Jules Annan / Avalon, IMAGO/Kevin Estrada / Avalon, Faye’s Vision/Cover Images/Instar, Wenn / Avalon,

Before now, I never knew that Bill and Hillary Clinton were part of KHive. I’m so pleased that they are, in fact, huge supporters of Vice President Kamala Harris. In the wake of President Biden’s sudden Sunday-afternoon announcement that he was dropping his reelection campaign and throwing his support and campaign apparatus to VP Harris, there was an influx of tributes to Pres. Biden’s presidency and decades of service. Within those tributes, many Democrats immediately followed Pres. Biden’s lead and threw their support behind VP Harris. The Clintons were two of the first to do so, and many others followed their route:

Statement from President Clinton and Secretary Clinton pic.twitter.com/R7tYMFWbsu

— Bill Clinton (@BillClinton) July 21, 2024

In case you’re looking for the specific KH endorsement: “We are honored to join the President in endorsing Vice President Harris and will do whatever we can to support her….Now is the time to support Kamala Harris and fight with everything we’ve got to elect her. America’s future depends on it.” As I said, the Clintons were very quick out of the gate, issuing this statement roughly eighty minutes after Pres. Biden dropped out of the race. Many Democrats followed suit – praising President Biden, then in the next moment, throwing their support behind VP Harris.

President Obama was not one of those Democrats. He issued a statement about President Biden, and he was completely silent on his endorsement. Considering many of Obama’s former staffers were front and center in the effort to push Biden out of the campaign and Obama sat by and did nothing publicly to support Biden in his time of great need, this all has left a really bad taste in my mouth over all things Obama. Here’s Obama’s statement:

Joe Biden has been one of America’s most consequential presidents, as well as a dear friend and partner to me. Today, we’ve also been reminded — again — that he’s a patriot of the highest order. Sixteen years ago, when I began my search for a vice president, I knew about Joe’s remarkable career in public service. But what I came to admire even more was his character — his deep empathy and hard-earned resilience; his fundamental decency and belief that everyone counts.

Since taking office, President Biden has displayed that character again and again. He helped end the pandemic, created millions of jobs, lowered the cost of prescription drugs, passed the first major piece of gun safety legislation in 30 years, made the biggest investment to address climate change in history, and fought to ensure the rights of working people to organize for fair wages and benefits. Internationally, he restored America’s standing in the world, revitalized NATO, and mobilized the world to stand up against Russian aggression in Ukraine.

More than that, President Biden pointed us away from the four years of chaos, falsehood, and division that had characterized Donald Trump’s administration. Through his policies and his example, Joe has reminded us of who we are at our best — a country committed to old-fashioned values like trust and honesty, kindness and hard work; a country that believes in democracy, rule of law, and accountability; a country that insists that everyone, no matter who they are, has a voice and deserves a chance at a better life.

This outstanding track record gave President Biden every right to run for re-election and finish the job he started. Joe understands better than anyone the stakes in this election — how everything he has fought for throughout his life, and everything that the Democratic Party stands for, will be at risk if we allow Donald Trump back in the White House and give Republicans control of Congress.

I also know Joe has never backed down from a fight. For him to look at the political landscape and decide that he should pass the torch to a new nominee is surely one of the toughest in his life. But I know he wouldn’t make this decision unless he believed it was right for America. It’s a testament to Joe Biden’s love of country — and a historic example of a genuine public servant once again putting the interests of the American people ahead of his own that future generations of leaders will do well to follow.

We will be navigating uncharted waters in the days ahead. But I have extraordinary confidence that the leaders of our party will be able to create a process from which an outstanding nominee emerges. I believe that Joe Biden’s vision of a generous, prosperous, and united America that provides opportunity for everyone will be on full display at the Democratic Convention in August. And I expect that every single one of us are prepared to carry that message of hope and progress forward into November and beyond.

For now, Michelle and I just want to express our love and gratitude to Joe and Jill for leading us so ably and courageously during these perilous times — and for their commitment to the ideals of freedom and equality that this country was founded on.

[From Obama’s Medium post]

“I have extraordinary confidence that the leaders of our party will be able to create a process from which an outstanding nominee emerges.” Motherf–ker, the outstanding nominee has already emerged – President Biden said it’s Kamala Harris. The party establishment – minus Obama and Nancy Pelosi – are all throwing their enthusiastic support behind VP Harris. Obama seems to be endorsing disarray at the convention. What the f–k is he doing? What the f–k has he been doing for the past month?

Embed from Getty Images

Embed from Getty Images

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Getty.

Just so we’re clear, everything I said last week still holds. I’m still convinced that this whole “Biden must drop out” movement was one giant interparty ratf–k. The media went into a giant feeding frenzy post-debate, which spooked Democratic donors, who then applied pressure on elected Democrats to knife President Biden in the back on or off the record. The Democratic in-fighting drove down Pres. Biden’s poll numbers because he was being constantly attacked by his allies and by the Beltway media, and those poll numbers were cited as a self-fulfilling prophecy that Biden must drop out. So an old man, who still has Covid, was finally convinced that he needed to drop out. Politico has a new story about what happened behind-the-scenes over the past week.

Two of Biden’s senior aides came to Delaware: Early Saturday, Biden told senior aides it was “full steam ahead” for the campaign. But by later that evening, he had changed his mind following a long discussion with his two closest aides. Steve Ricchetti, who’s been with Biden since his days in the Senate, drove to see the president at his house on the Delaware shore on Friday. Mike Donilon arrived on Saturday. The two men, both of whom had been by Biden’s side during key decisions about whether to seek the presidency in 2016 and 2020, sat at a distance from the president, still testing positive for Covid, and presented damning new information in a meeting that would hasten the end of Biden’s political career.

Biden’s internal polls: In addition to presenting new concerns from lawmakers and updates on a fundraising operation that had slowed considerably, they carried the campaign’s own polls, which came back this week and showed his path to victory in November was gone, according to five people familiar with the matter, who, like others interviewed for this article, were granted anonymity to discuss private conversations. Biden asked several questions during the exchange.

Biden is sick of his own people: The announcement, which shocked the political world, almost immediately flipped the narrative around Biden: His own party, after three weeks of deriding him privately as an isolated, deluded lion in winter dragging other Democrats down with him, was showering him with loving tributes, praising his record, career of public service and a selfless decision they said put his country first. It wasn’t that the president had grown tired of the drip of defections from within his own party — although he had. Rather, it was that Biden himself was finally convinced of what so many other Democrats had come to believe since his poor debate performance last month: He couldn’t win.

Pelosi is Brutus: Senior Biden aides were bracing for former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), who’d worked behind the scenes to encourage others in the party toward the kind of collective action that might finally push the president to end his campaign, to go public this week and possibly even disclose Democratic polling clarifying Biden’s dire political straits. “Nancy made clear that they could do this the easy way or the hard way,” said one Democrat familiar with private conversations who was granted anonymity to speak candidly. “She gave them three weeks of the easy way. It was about to be the hard way….We were giving him the respect of the weekend to make his decision. We were hopeful that this is the decision we would make.”

Congressional leaders were pushing Biden privately: “He got the message,” said the House Democrat, granted anonymity to speak frankly. Referring to the Senate Majority Leader, House Minority Leader and Speaker Emeritus, the lawmaker said: “It was from Chuck, Hakeem, Pelosi.” Over three days late last week, Biden spoke privately with Pelosi, Jeffries and Schumer. The Senate leader traveled to visit the president last Saturday at his vacation home in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware.

Obama’s role: Those leaks [from Congressional Dems], which coincided with a Washington Post report that former President Barack Obama was also expressing concerns about Biden’s campaign privately, signaled to other Democrats who’d yet to express private concerns publicly that the time to do so was at hand.

[From Politico]

There will be some who say that Pelosi did what she needed to do and that she’s still got her finger on the pulse of the party. But I disagree. To me, Pelosi wasn’t reading the tea leaves as much as she was orchestrating the entire operation. What should have been a moment in which Democrats overcame a few bad newscycles, they instead folded at the first sign of bad news. It’s a horrible precedent and something which will not be forgotten by the Democratic Party’s foot soldiers. The thing is, after Biden’s withdrawal, the vibes have been close to perfect… in spite of Pelosi, Obama, et al. I feel strongly that Biden made his withdrawal conditional on Democrats quickly getting behind VP Harris. If you go back and look at what all of the ratf–kers were saying before Biden’s statement, they had NO PLAN for what came after they knifed Biden in the back and convinced him to withdraw. President Biden’s last act as a presidential candidate was to ensure that the party quickly coalesced behind Kamala Harris.

Photos courtesy of Backgrid, Cover Images.