July 21, 2024

THE OBAMA HANGOVER. Or, How We Got Here:

● Shot: Biden’s Obama grudge drives 2024 resolve.

President Biden’s lingering regret and anger from when Democrats pushed him not to run in 2016 is fueling his determination to stay in the race in 2024, current and former Biden aides told Axios.

Why it matters: Several people close to Biden said they believe his bitterness toward former President Obama, and the congressional Democrats now trashing him, is making the president more determined to continue his campaign even as some of his own aides think an exit is inevitable.

  • Many Obama advisers pressured Biden to not run in 2016 and Biden’s resentment over that episode has diminished Obama’s influence with Biden as the president contemplates his path forward.

  • If Obama directly pushed Biden to not to run this time, Biden aides told Axios it could make Biden even more resolved to remain the nominee.

  • A former Biden aide said: “Obama already used that chit in 2016 when his team lobbied him against running. You don’t get to do that more than once.”

—Axios, today.

● Chaser: Watch: Inside the Night President Obama Took On Donald Trump.

It was April of 2011. For weeks, Donald Trump had been fanning the flames of the “birther” movement and attacking President Barack Obama on television — demanding that Obama produce his birth certificate, implying that he was not born in the United States, and questioning both his religious identity and the legality of his presidency.

But on April 30, the tables were turned. Trump was the recipient of President Obama’s jokes at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner — and Trump political adviser Roger Stone tells FRONTLINE in The Choice 2016 that the dinner was a turning point for Trump.

“I think that is the night he resolves to run for president,” Stone says in the opening scene of FRONTLINE’s two-hour documentary on Trump and Clinton, which premieres on Tues., Sept. 27 at 9 p.m. EST/8 p.m. CST on PBS stations nationwide.

“I think that he is kind of motivated by it: ‘Maybe I’ll just run. Maybe I’ll show them all,’” Stone adds.

—PBS’s Frontline, September 22, 2016.

● Hangover: Aaron Sorkin: Democrats should pick Mitt Romney to beat Trump.

Playwright and screenwriter Aaron Sorkin has today encouraged the Democratic Party to nominate Republican senator Mitt Romney as its presidential candidate.

In a guest essay for the New York Times Sorkin, who created political drama series The West Wing and won an Academy Award for writing the screenplay of The Social Network, argues that former GOP presidential candidate Romney “would peel off enough Republican votes to win, probably by a lot” against Donald Trump. Sorkin adds that nominating the Utah senator would be “a clear and powerful demonstration that this election isn’t about what our elections are usually about, but about stopping a deranged man from taking power”.

Sorkin has been a steadfast supporter of the Democratic Party for several decades. Between 1999 and 2013, he is on record as having donated $289,400 to party campaigns, while he wrote campaign ads for the Democrats during the 2004 presidential election.

When Trump beat Hillary Clinton to the presidency in 2016 Sorkin published an open letter to his wife and teenage daughter, calling the result “truly horrible” and Trump “a thoroughly incompetent pig with dangerous ideas, a serious psychiatric disorder, no knowledge of the world and no curiosity to learn”. He added of the Republican’s supporters that “the Klan won last night. White nationalists. Sexists, racists and buffoons,” and suggested that “there is a party going on at ISIS headquarters.”

In today’s NYT article, Sorkin similarly labels Trump “a dangerous imbecile with an observable psychiatric disorder” and “a dump truck of ignorance and bad intentions”. He also accuses the GOP nominee of “treat[ing] the law as something for suckers and poor people” and of being “a hero for white supremacists”. Arguing that “there isn’t a Democrat who is polling significantly better than Mr. Biden”, Sorkin claims that nominating Romney to take on Trump “would not just put a lump in people’s throats with its appeal to stop-Donald-Trump-at-all-costs unity, but with its originality and sense of sacrifice”.

—UnHerd, today.

Given Romney’s entire career as the ultimate RINO, I could understand him wanting to finally make it official, not to mention his lingering Stockholm Syndrome after how the DNC-MSM ran him through the wringer during the 2012 election. But why would black Democrats vote for a man whom the current president angrily shouted was going to put them “back in chains?”

Incidentally, while the Axios headline today is “Biden’s Obama grudge drives 2024 resolve,” how much of a grudge do you think Barry is still carrying over Joe?

Posted at 12:00 pm by Ed Driscoll