Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) faced a monumental political chore: telling Joe Biden, the leader of his party, he needed to step down. It’s no small feat, and it’s not like the Democrats had much time. The June debate on CNN, where Biden got rolled by Donald Trump, has set off alarm bells. The cover-up of the president’s mental health got exposed—there was no pivoting away. Then, he caught COVID a few weeks later during a Nevada campaign stop. It reinforced the narrative that was now firmly entrenched in the minds of voters, Democrats and Republicans alike: Biden was too old, sick, and senile to be president.
The then-Senate Majority leader saw the polling; he knew his caucus, and they were staunchly opposed to Biden continuing his run for president. What’s startling is how Joe thought the whole party would continue to unite behind him, even exhibiting arrogance about it. Yes, he was the president, but he was frail. There’s a difference between a powerful office and a powerful person. The presidency was only as robust as the man behind the desk, and everyone could easily outmaneuver the man. Nancy Pelosi ran roughshod over Joe’s political team, which the California liberal admitted was not impressive.
Every single Democrat and journalist knew Joe Biden was a disaster
— Matthew Foldi (@MatthewFoldi) January 17, 2025
Every single Democrat and journalist lied to the American people https://t.co/Qhd2OoEWjH pic.twitter.com/q9XomJc7oU
ANYONE SURPRISED? The NY Times reports that sometimes Joe Biden would call Senator Schumer and forget why he had called.
— Breaking911 (@Breaking911) January 17, 2025
SCHUMER A FEW MONTHS AGO: "Biden's "mental acuity is great. It’s fine.. All this right-wing propaganda that his mental acuity has declined is wrong!” pic.twitter.com/Z94RgFKJ8S
The New York Times detailed Schumer’s journey toward telling the president on that muggy day in July that he needed to vacate the ticket. It also touched upon other aspects of the 2024 race, including Biden’s inner circle, which often kept the man isolated from bad news and likely contributed to the lengthy exercise of removing him from the ticket. Oh, and regarding Biden’s mental health, there were times when he would forget why he called Chuck Schumer. Again, this cover-up was a years’ long operation, and one which calls into question which policies and laws, if any, were actually pushed by the president with his full knowledge (via NYT):
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If there were a secret ballot among Democratic senators, Mr. Schumer would tell the president, no more than five would say he should continue running. Mr. Biden’s own pollsters assessed that he had about a 5 percent chance of prevailing against Donald J. Trump, Mr. Schumer would tell him — information that was apparently news to the president. And if the president refused to step aside, the senator would argue, the consequences for Democrats and Mr. Biden’s own legacy after a half-century of public service would be catastrophic.
“If you run and you lose to Trump, and we lose the Senate, and we don’t get back the House, that 50 years of amazing, beautiful work goes out the window,” Mr. Schumer said. “But worse — you go down in American history as one of the darkest figures.”
He would end with a directive. “If I were you,” Mr. Schumer said, “I wouldn’t run, and I’m urging you not to run.”
[…]
When Mr. Schumer arrived at Mr. Biden’s beach house that summer day, he could hear the president shouting.
Mr. Biden was finishing up a contentious Zoom call with a small group of lawmakers who were expressing their concerns about his viability as a candidate, and his back was up. This was exactly the kind of scenario Mr. Schumer had been hoping to avoid for the past three weeks, as he stalled for time and dragged his feet about having this awkward conversation at all. He worried that the famously stubborn president would feel cornered and dig in even more.
For months, Mr. Schumer had been concerned that Mr. Biden was going to lose to Mr. Trump and cost Democrats Congress. It wasn’t that he thought Mr. Biden was not capable of the job. During their weekly conversations, the president often rambled, but he had always rambled. Once in a while, Mr. Biden would forget why he had called, but Mr. Schumer thought little of it. He was convinced that Mr. Biden could handle the job.
[…]
Mr. Schumer had one simple message for everyone who called him. “Do not be public,” he said. “That will get his back up, and you’ve got to let the dust settle. But if you can, call whoever you know in the campaign. Call the White House.”
Some lawmakers thought waiting was the wrong strategy.
Representative Jamie Raskin, Democrat of Maryland, chose at first to go the private route, sending a letter to Mr. Biden on July 6 encouraging him to leave the race. One of Mr. Biden’s top advisers, Steve Ricchetti, assured Mr. Raskin that the president and the first lady had both read his letter and that Mr. Biden planned to call him. But the president never did. So he released his letter publicly.
“I did expect to hear from him,” Mr. Raskin said later.
Mr. Schumer saved his frank conversations for Mr. Jeffries and former President Barack Obama. On June 28, the night after the debate, Mr. Jeffries was scheduled to participate in a fund-raiser in New York City, where he was to interview Mr. Obama in front of an audience in a “fireside chat” setting. At a brief dinner meeting before the event, Mr. Obama suggested addressing the elephant in the room “right up at the top.”
We all know Barack Obama was a key player in pushing Joe aside. However, he dared not become the face or the primary messenger in delivering that frank talk to his former vice president, who still carries resentment over being passed over in 2016 for Hillary Clinton. Still, as July progressed and the convention drew nearer, more Democrats, silently seething at Joe’s inability to see he was cooked, voiced their outrage behind closed doors. Still, Biden’s team felt their Hill allies were off base, even suggesting Biden’s NATO presser would assuage any concerns about his mental state. That ploy reportedly infuriated Schumer, who felt it was a wholly inadequate response to worries about Joe’s health. He was right—the presser was another disaster.
Late the next afternoon, Mr. Schumer joined Mr. Biden on the screened-in porch in Rehoboth Beach to deliver his own blunt message.
He gave a detailed blow-by-blow of what each Democratic senator had told Mr. Biden’s top aides on Capitol Hill days earlier, leaving the president wide-eyed and leading Mr. Schumer to conclude that his aides had not briefed him on what had transpired.
“If there’s a secret ballot, Mr. President,” Mr. Schumer said, “my guess is you at most get five yeses.”
“Really?” Mr. Biden responded.
“I know my caucus,” Mr. Schumer told him. “You know I know my caucus.”
Mr. Biden nodded.
[…]
When he asked whether Mr. Biden had talked to his pollsters about his chances of winning the race, the president shook his head.
“Well, I have talked to them,” Mr. Schumer said. “My guess is you have about a 5 percent chance. None of your pollsters disagree with me.”
Only twice did Mr. Biden interrupt to ask a question, and both times it was: “Do you really think Kamala can win?”
After this discussion, Schumer returned to the car, reportedly breaking down. Not that he deserves a gold star, but degraded as he was, even Joe knew Kamala wasn’t a winning candidate. Neither was he, however. Biden claims he could’ve beaten Trump when, in truth, he might have done worse. Around the time of his announced departure from his re-election effort, he was losing ground in the heavily Democratic Northern Virginia suburbs.
It circles back to the start of this failed presidency. This man and his VP were never meant to run a country, nor did they have the skill to do it. It was the voters correcting a mistake. It indeed confirmed that Joe Biden was never made of presidential timber, as he’d run and lost twice before. And now, his legacy is incompetence, corruption, and senility that engulfed the world in chaos.
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