ALL THE PRESIDENT’S MEN: An article in the Grauniad titled “An American tragedy: how Biden paved the way for Trump’s White House return” contains this anecdote about veteran Democrat pollster Larry Sabato and Biden’s declining health:

Dean Phillips, a Minnesota congressman, announced that he would challenge Biden in the party primary, citing poll numbers and the president’s age as reasons to pass on the torch to a new generation. He told the Washington Post newspaper: “We’re at grave risk of another Trump presidency. I’m doing this to prevent a return of Donald Trump to the White House.”

In public, Phillips was ridiculed. In private, others shared his concerns. Larry Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia, recalled receiving a call from a Democratic senator in late January or early February 2024.

“I said, ‘Is there any particular reason why you called me? I’d like to know.’ He said, ‘You do realise, off the record, that Joe Biden is not going to be our nominee?’ I was stunned. I said, ‘What, how, why?’ He said, ‘I just was at a meeting with him with several other senators and he couldn’t even function. We can’t run him.’”

Sabato added that the senator in question tried to raise the issue, which angered the White House. “He was punished, as several of them were. They gave him the cold shoulder for a while. The point is that a lot of people had figured it out but they didn’t care. I’m stunned that they got away with it and have produced term two for Trump and it’s going to be the longest four years of our life.”

Here’s what Sabato was tweeting in July of 2024 before Biden was yanked off the national stage: