There is growing speculation within the Biden camp that President Joe Biden’s swift endorsement of Kamala Harris was a form of retaliation against prominent party leaders, such as former President Barack Obama, who urged him to withdraw from the race. Sources claim that Obama had advised Biden to allow delegates at the upcoming Democratic National Convention in Chicago to determine a new candidate.
In his public address on Wednesday, Joe Biden announced that he was stepping down “in defense of democracy,” which one source close to the family referred to as a “big f–k you.” The same source added that if Biden was out of the race, he would endorse Harris. It seems that Biden viewed this move as a means to assert some control over his own ouster from the Democratic nomination process.
A well-placed Democratic Party source revealed that Obama, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and New York Senator Chuck Schumer wanted to hold “a mini primary” which Obama believed would not be won by Harris. The same sources told The Post that Obama had favored Arizona Senator Mark Kelly as the top candidate at the convention.
Biden’s abrupt endorsement of Harris after announcing his resignation from the 2024 presidential campaign has been interpreted by a Democratic Party source as “Joe truly knifing Obama and Pelosi in the back for making him stand down.” Furthermore, an unnamed longtime Washington insider suggested that Biden intends to play an active role in Harris’s campaign. This involvement would provide the vice president with valuable experience and prevent her campaign from being dominated by insular advisors.
Tensions between Obama and Biden have been simmering since 2015 when Obama convinced Biden not to run for president in the 2016 race, a decision that has become a source of frustration for the former vice president. Obama officially endorsed Harris on Friday after Biden’s televised address, with NBC reporting that he refrained from doing so earlier in order to avoid overshadowing Biden’s announcement.
Following the disastrous debate between Biden and Republican nominee Donald Trump last month, some prominent Democrats reportedly threatened to invoke the 25th Amendment of the US Constitution and urge Vice President Kamala Harris and the cabinet to remove Biden from office. According to sources close to the family, Obama was involved in this plan, with actor George Clooney’s op-ed in the New York Times urging Biden to step aside being a part of that effort.
Obama’s influence on Biden not running for the presidency in 2016 has been a contentious issue between the two men since then. In an interview with the New York Times, Biden admitted that Obama was “not encouraging” when he decided not to run for president in 2016. The source close to the family also claimed that Obama doubts Harris’s ability to navigate the challenges ahead of her as a presidential candidate, citing her lackluster performance as border czar and her statement regarding migrants needing health insurance.
