(Headline USA) Former President Barack Obama is reportedly “anxious” over President Joe Biden’s chances in November’s election, and has been holding secret meetings with Biden’s campaign to strategize how to defeat former President Donald Trump.
A report from New York Magazine this week revealed Obama believes the race between Biden and Trump will be a nail-biter.
He’s tried to avoid publicly criticizing Biden’s campaign, according to the report, even though he agrees with other top Democrats that Biden has fumbled his reelection bid.
Obama reportedly encouraged Biden’s team to make up for lost ground by tripling its digital budget and hiring a group of tech tycoons to help build out Biden’s online operations. He also helped recruit director Steven Spielberg, who helped produce Biden’s convention programming.
Biden’s team was allegedly hesitant to take on Obama as a central campaign surrogate at first, confirming the long-running tension between the former president and Biden.
“Without having to scale a hobbling primary campaign into a national one amid a pandemic, and with the benefit of three years of incumbency, Biden and his aides saw little reason to rely on Obama so heavily again,” the report claims.
But they eventually gave in to Obama’s demand for a bigger role.
“Not only that, the 44th president had supposedly urged the 46th to install a trusted senior adviser or two at his campaign headquarters in Wilmington—someone like Obama’s 2008 campaign manager David Plouffe—rather than keeping his inner circle intact in Washington,” the report states.
However, one of the Obamas’ close friends claimed that though Obama’s “anxiety” about the election is “real,” his “nerves are not a reflection of any particular angst about Biden or his team but of the broader reality: the country is closely divided, the media landscape is fractured, and Donald Trump may very well win.”
With reports that Michelle Obama refuses to campaign for the Bidens, the news of the former president’s anxiety could just as easily be planted propaganda intended to quell the mounting public speculation about Democrats’ efforts to replace Biden on the ticket.
Michelle Obama has long been floated as one of the most viable prospects to replace him on the ticket in the event of a last-minute bait-and-switch, although the former first lady has long denied having any interest in campaigning.
The 81-year-old Biden’s increasingly pronounced cognitive decline, particularly following the felony conviction of his son Hunter, has led to a growing belief, even among Democrats, that he will not make it to the final stretch.
In a moment of symbolic resonance, Obama himself helped usher Biden off the stage after the latter froze up during a recent Hollywood fundraiser.
That’s a wrap on record-setting Democratic fundraiser for Joe Biden’s reelection campaign (netting $28M). Former President Barack Obama and President Joe Biden offer final waves to Peacock Theater crowd as Obama then grabs Biden’s hand to lead him offstage following 40-minute… pic.twitter.com/xbE2jf3jdz
— Chris Gardner (@chrissgardner) June 16, 2024
