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The way Biden has treated Israel and, apparently allowed Iran to come within 2 weeks of going nuclear, he deserves no kudos.
Democrats Still Publicly Back Biden for 2024. Privately, Their Fears Are Growing.
Polls show warning signs for the incumbent, but few Democrats see viable Plan B
Publicly, top Democrats say they support President Biden running for re-election and think he can win. Privately, their worries are increasing but they are resigned to the idea that he isn’t going anywhere, and there is no viable Plan B.
Polls have consistently shown that most voters, including the majority of Democrats, don’t think Biden should run in 2024, and many have deep concerns about the 80-year-old president’s age, fitness for office and leadership. Those fears have intensified as his approval ratings have declined—a recent NBC News poll showed Biden with a job approval of 41%, with 56% disapproving, compared with 46% approval, 50% disapproval in the same poll in January.
In recent days, Biden has started taking the fight more directly to his likely opponent, former President Donald Trump. Biden and his allies say he is more than up for the job and is Democrats’ best hope against the man he beat in 2020.
But with multiple surveys showing Biden and Trump essentially tied in hypothetical matchups, the fretting within the party has increased as the window for a primary challenge closes before the start of the new year. The president is now also grappling with a strike by auto workers in its third week and a coming showdown over Ukraine funding after Congress approved a bill to keep the government funded through mid-November. While views of the economy are improving, voters aren’t giving Biden any credit for his stewardship and they are still anxious about inflation.
Private worries
Conversations with more than a dozen leading Democrats revealed the pervasive, but mostly private, sense of worry that hangs over the race. Some compare this moment to the 2016 cycle when many top Democrats brushed aside Hillary Clinton’s vulnerabilities only to watch her ultimately lose to Trump. But this is in many ways a different case—a sitting president facing clear frustration from voters, including those within his own party.
“It is a little bit like your grandfather running the company and you know that he’s at a point now where the heirs could suffer value if we don’t change management at the top,” said Philip Levine, a former Democratic mayor of Miami Beach, Fla., who has expressed support for No Labels, a centrist group that has suggested it may run a third-party candidate. “And this is very difficult. How do we get grandpa to relinquish the CEO role?”
Other Democrats would only echo those sentiments in private. Said one member of the Democratic National Committee: “It would be irresponsible for us to not be concerned at this point. People can be hopeful about what the result is going to be. But we don’t have any evidence as to why we should be hopeful. The polling is bad. The approval ratings are bad. We know about concerns about both the president’s age and about the vice president if she were to take over.”
The DNC member added: “I want to see Bidenism continue but I think the best way to make sure that happens is to perhaps have a different candidate than Joe Biden.”
The president’s defenders argue that even if Biden were to step aside, that could trigger a messy primary process that may not produce a better candidate. Few expect Vice President Kamala Harris would sway other Democrats from not running in an open primary field. Harris’s job-approval ratings trail Biden’s, and some donors and party officials have doubts about whether she could effectively succeed Biden.
A large group of Democratic governors are viewed as potential candidates in 2028.
Biden directly addressed the concerns about his age at a recent fundraiser in New York City saying, “A lot of people seem a little focused on my age. I get it.” But he added: “A couple of you are over 50 here. You know, with age comes wisdom. You have experience. And so, I knew what to do.”
Former White House press secretary Jen Psaki said the Biden administration is well aware of the concerns during an interview on the “On With Kara Swisher” podcast. “They are fully tracking it,” she said. “It’s not that it’s just popped up as an issue in the last six months.”
Public support
Biden’s advisers have dismissed the lingering doubts as a classic case of Democratic “bed-wetting,” noting that then-President Barack Obama also suffered from bad polling at this point in his first term.
“In 2020, our campaign focused on real voters—not the cable news green room chatter. What matters is building a strong operation, investing in reaching our coalition, and focusing on November 2024. That strategy worked then, and it will again in 2024,” said Biden campaign spokesman Kevin Munoz.
Democrats cite Biden’s legislative scorecard, including securing funding for infrastructure and for climate, technology and healthcare investments. They also note he has beaten Trump before and the party has fared well in a number of special elections in 2023, including winning a GOP-held seat in the New Hampshire state House.
“I do think Biden is our best option when you look at some of the things he’s accomplished,” said Christine Sinicki, chair of the Democratic Party of Milwaukee County in Wisconsin.
Resignation
Some Democrats said this debate is largely moot—barring a health scare or other unforeseen circumstances, Biden isn’t quitting the race. And no prominent Democrats have challenged him for the nomination.
Some Democrats said they were encouraged by Biden’s appearances last week, particularly a speech in Arizona targeting Trump, in which Biden called Trump and his allies “a threat to the brick and mortar of our democratic institutions.”
“I have heard over and over: ‘When are they going to take the gloves off?’” said one Democratic fundraiser. “It is good to see the gloves off.”
Even before Biden launched his re-election bid in April, his team orchestrated a resolution approved by the DNC expressing support for his re-election and a number of his 2020 campaign rivals, including progressives such as Sens. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.) and Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.) said they would support him. Warren reiterated that Biden is the “right person to run” and predicted his victory next year.
And even those who publicly doubted him have reversed course. “Look, I said a year ago that I thought a next generation of Democrats should step forward, but if the president decided to run for re-election that I would support him,” said Rep. Angie Craig, (D., Minn.) “That is exactly what I’m doing.”
The DNC has said it has no plans to stage any primary debates—even though Biden faces minor primary opposition.
With just five months to go before the primary contests start in 2024, many Democrats said there simply was no time to change course.
“We’re almost into the election season now,” said David Axelrod, a former top adviser to Obama. “There really, in my view, is not time for the kind of full-blown campaign you want to have to vet the candidates.”
“My view of this is, this is an academic issue,” Axelrod said. “Biden’s running and he’s going to be the nominee. That is just the reality.”
Katy Stech Ferek contributed to this article.
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How dense can they really be?
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Leftists can’t figure out why they’re so unpopular
Real Israelis are turned off by miserable people, such as you and your constant kvetching. Op-ed.
By Jack Engelhard
Leftists can’t figure out why they’re so unpopular. Let me explain.
Apparently their most recent riot, Yom Kippur, Tel Aviv, did not go off too well. Now these leftists, who failed to draw support, wonder why nobody likes them.
Says so in a dozen articles I’ve read…how isolated they feel, from one stunt to the next.
One reason you guys are so unpopular is because you are ugly, physically repulsive. I don’t mean to hurt your feelings, but look in the mirror. See what I mean?
Some days ago, when a few of you were on “60 Minutes,” my dog wouldn’t stop barking, and my cat ran under the bed, and she still won’t come out.
Better it was for you during Covid, when you had to wear a mask.
Besides that, Real Israelis are the happiest people on earth. Says so in the Happiness Index. They love their country…by a vast 99.9 percent majority.
You leftists, on the other hand, are always miserable. You top the Misery Scale, and that is no way to make friends and influence people.
Real Israelis are turned off by miserable people, such as you and your constant kvetching.
Nobody likes a kvetch.
So then, dear leftists, what’s the complaint anyway?
Every day, and for every riot, it’s something else. We’ve lost touch with your message, and so have you.
Judicial Reform, you say, is harmful for the country.
That’s rich coming from people who disrupt traffic so that even emergency vehicles can’t get through, and then block access to hospitals.
Real Israelis are supposed to cheer you for this?
You are the “danger to Democracy.”
Harmful for the country is the left.
I suppose, then, that as you go marching, disrupting, and rioting, you think up a terrific new way to win over the rest of the Jewish/Israeli population.
What you decided was to go stomping and protesting with Palestinian Arab flags, and with those terrorists at your side.
What a way to win the hearts and minds of the Israelis who still weep for the fallen!
You ingrates, are you aware of how you blaspheme the men and women who served, and continue to do so for God and Country?
That’s it right there…you have no God, no Country.
You have nothing but your own miserable lives.
Keep protesting, but don’t look back, because nobody in his right mind is following you.
New York-based bestselling American novelist Jack Engelhard writes regularly for Arutz Sheva.
He wrote the worldwide book-to-movie bestseller “Indecent Proposal,” the authoritative newsroom epic, “The Bathsheba Deadline,” followed by his coming-of-age classics, “The Girls of Cincinnati,” and, the Holocaust-to-Montreal memoir, “Escape from Mount Moriah.” For that and his 1960s epic “The Days of the Bitter End,” contemporaries have hailed him “The last Hemingway, a writer without peer, and the conscience of us all.”
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This trial is a modern day witch hunt and I do not care how much you hate Trump. It is obvious you hate American justice and our constitution even more. We wonce were a better people.
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Donald Trump’s Fraud Trial in New York
Is this a case about inflated asset values or partisan politics? Yes.
New York’s civil fraud trial against Donald Trump and his business empire started Monday in a Manhattan courtroom, and the great shame is that he and state Attorney General Letitia James can’t both lose. In comments at the courthouse, Mr. Trump called it a “witch hunt,” and he has a point. Yet the investigation also seems to have caught some typical Trumpian deception.
Judge Arthur Engoron granted partial summary judgment to the state last week, ruling that Mr. Trump presented grossly inflated financial figures to lenders. This is “not a matter of rounding errors or reasonable experts disagreeing,” he wrote. Mr. Trump’s famed triplex residence in Trump Tower is 10,996 square feet, but he repeatedly claimed 30,000 square feet.
“Defendants absurdly suggest that ‘the calculation of square footage is a subjective process that could lead to differing results,’” the judge added. “Well yes, perhaps, if the area is rounded or oddly shaped,” but “good-faith measurements could vary by as much as 10-20%, not 200%. A discrepancy of this order of magnitude, by a real estate developer sizing up his own living space of decades, can only be considered fraud.”
The ruling goes on for pages like this: Despite four appraisals pegging his Seven Springs estate at $30 million or less, Mr. Trump claimed it was worth $261 million. He valued apartments in New York as if their rents weren’t regulated. His figures for several golf clubs “included a 15% or 30% ‘premium’ based on the ‘Trump brand,’” according to the judge, even while lenders were told no such premium was added.
Judge Engoron acknowledged that this asset puffery doesn’t seem to have created losses for the creditors: “Defendants correctly assert that ‘the record is devoid of any evidence of default, breach, late payment, or any complaint of harm.’” The judge said, however, that legally speaking this is “completely irrelevant.” Whether he is correct under New York law is a possible subject of appeal.
Perhaps the state will argue that the lenders might have demanded better terms if they’d seen accurate information. New York is the nation’s financial capital and has an interest in stopping deceit in the marketplace.
But the lenders weren’t naifs and had to know Mr. Trump’s penchant for lying. Mr. Trump appears to believe he could claim anything, as long as he tacked on a disclaimer. “They call it ‘worthless clause,’” he said in a deposition, “because it makes the statement ‘worthless.’”
Yet Mr. Trump is right that Ms. James is a partisan Democrat who campaigned on going after him. The night she won the AG’s race in November 2018, she proclaimed: “I will be shining a bright light into every dark corner of his real estate dealings.” This is an abuse of prosecutorial power, targeting a person and then hunting for something to charge him with.
There is also cause to wonder about Judge Engoron’s sweeping judgment when there are no clear victims. The judge’s pretrial ruling last week would essentially strip Mr. Trump of control over assets in New York, including Trump Tower. Ms. James wants to ban him from doing business in New York. It’s hard to believe anyone not named Trump, and not so loathed by Democrats, would be facing such a sanction.
Mr. Trump showed up in court Monday for a reason, using every opportunity to portray himself as a political victim. His claim will resonate with many because of Ms. James’s targeting and Judge Engoron’s caustic opinion. If Democrats hope all of this will keep Mr. Trump from the White House, they may discover they are helping him win the GOP nomination to face a weak and unpopular President Biden.
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By Matt Vespa
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A Congressman Got Carjacked in DC Last Night
By Guy Benson
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