In addition to growing concerns about President Joe Biden’s mental and physical health ahead of the 2024 election, there have been broader discussions among Democrats regarding the party’s future direction as the current crop of leaders ages.
Blue dog Democrats, or moderates by today’s standards, are no longer dominant within the Democratic Party, which has moved further to the left with each election over the past several decades.
Now, one of the leaders of the shift to the left may be working behind the scenes to drive it in that direction even further.
Jonathan Martin, the politics bureau chief for Politico, reported Thursday that former President Barack Obama recently hosted a number of meetings with younger House Democrats which were described as “informal, but lengthy” and which “took place over cheese and crackers in Obama’s Washington office.”
However, it is unclear what was discussed.
Martin described the meetings as “private,” but they were not completely secret, as “Obama’s advisers took care to alert the Biden West Wing about the conversations.”
“The gatherings were Obama’s idea, I’m told, and were designed for the now-61-year-old former president to keep current with his party’s rising stars, more than six years after he left office,” he added. “The sessions…are striking for a number of reasons.”
He further noted:
The former president was cautious not to criticize Vice President Biden in front of lawmakers, instead encouraging Democrats to aggressively market their achievements. However, he conceded that the party’s fate in 2024 would be heavily dependent on Biden’s success.
Multiple participants told me that it was never entirely clear to them why Obama wished to convene. The meetings were described to me as a combination of get-to-know-you conversation, lengthy advice, discussion of best practices, and curiosity about what the legislators were hearing at home.
Voters are increasingly concerned about Biden’s increasingly frequent physical mishaps and near-mishaps, as his declining popularity continues to decline.
Fox News presenter Harris Faulkner, for example, did not mince words when she lambasted Biden for falling on stage at the U.S. Air Force Academy graduation earlier this month.
During an episode of “Outnumbered,” Faulkner stated that Biden “looked like a bug” after his on-stage fall, contending that he presented a “very vulnerable, capitulated view for an enemy.”
Former White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany began the segment by displaying an image of autumn. This prompted the co-hosts to take turns criticizing Biden and the “message” he sent to the world.
“His images often summed up a presidency and I saw his yesterday of this, he tweeted it out, and it’s just this image of the Biden presidency of him being helped up in a kind of decrepit position, and it’s, you risk an image like this defining your presidency, regardless of the sandbag, but just the questions of mental acuity and more,” McEnany offered.
More on this story via Conservative Brief:
Faulkner issued a similar response. CONTINUE READING…
