CNN
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Barack Obama and Nancy Pelosi have spoken privately about Joe Biden and the future of his 2024 campaign. Both the former president and the former speaker expressed concern about how difficult they believe it has become for the president to defeat Donald Trump. Neither is sure what to do.
Democrats desperately want the dire infighting to end so they can get back to trying to defeat the former president. And they’re begging Obama or Pelosi to help them do it, knowing that Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer doesn’t have Biden’s trust and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries doesn’t have the depth of the relationship to get the message across.
CNN spoke to more than a dozen members of Congress, aides and several people who have contact with both Obama and Pelosi, many of whom say the end of Biden’s candidacy is clear and that at this point it’s just a matter of how it plays out, even after Thursday night’s press conference.
And if the two feel differently, several prominent Democrats say, they should make that clear as soon as possible, before more damage is done less than four months before the election.
Many of Pelosi’s colleagues are hoping she can put an end to the unrest that has roiled Democrats over the past two weeks. And for many of them, that end could come if and when she tells Biden to back off.
Pelosi has spoken to Biden since the debate, but the California Democrat has since made it clear that she does not view Biden’s decision to stay in the race as final. But she declined through an aide to comment further.
Obama’s decision to abstain from public comment for two weeks has left some leading Democrats feeling like he has abandoned them by maintaining the same stance that has largely defined his post-presidency. After the debate, he posted on X: “Bad debate nights happen. Trust me, I know,” echoing the sentiment at a fundraiser in New York for House Democrats the night after Biden’s appearance. The former president had not even planned to make a public statement, but Biden and Obama’s aides worked together to phrase the post in a way that echoed Biden’s campaign points: that Obama’s first reelection debate in 2012 also went poorly and that it did not end his campaign.
But Obama’s growing skepticism about his friend’s re-election chances is one of the worst-kept secrets in Washington.
When the history of this extraordinary two-week period in American politics is written, the fingerprints of Obama and Pelosi will be much clearer than we know, people familiar with the matter told CNN, as Democratic leaders have served as guideposts for a party in panic.
“They’re watching and waiting for President Biden to make a decision himself,” a longtime Democrat close to them told CNN, speaking on condition of anonymity to avoid being seen as disrespectful to Biden.
Biden’s campaign declined to comment.
Obama has made more phone calls than he has made, people who have spoken to him say. When he talks to concerned Democratic donors and officials, he listens more than he talks, and he carefully avoids taking positions that he assumes will quickly leak.
That was also Obama’s approach to his post-debate conversation with Biden, during which the current president suggested to others that the former president was supportive of him navigating the turmoil. But according to others familiar with the conversation, Obama stuck to his “sounding board and private adviser” stance. He prodded. He played devil’s advocate. But he didn’t take a position.
In conversations with some Democrats over the past two weeks, Obama has dismissed the idea that he could nudge Biden one way or the other even if he wanted to, underscoring their long, complicated but loyal relationship. And it’s gotten more complicated during their time apart: Since leaving office — and their weekly White House lunches of eight years — the two have spoken far less than some of their advisers have often implied.
If the former president was trying to get Biden to leave, people familiar with Obama say, he knows the prism through which to see it. Biden has written that he felt Obama did not encourage him to enter the Democratic primary late in the months after his son Beau died in 2015. While Obama believes he was trying to help his then-vice president focus on his grief and not get caught up in what would have been an incredibly tough campaign against Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, that might not be how a different conversation would play out.
“Biden would say, ‘Well, Mr. President, you used that chip in 2015 and it gave us Donald Trump,’” one longtime 2020 campaign adviser speculated. “I think it would make him tougher.”
Obama also does not want to provide Trump, who is always triggered by him, with new material by actively interfering.
In the past — including during the 2020 Democratic primaries — Obama has seen his role as a unifier who can help validate the party’s direction for parts of the party that remain skeptical. So far, he hasn’t committed to that role amid the turmoil over whether Biden should remain the nominee, what happens if he stays, or what happens if he changes course and decides to run. “Well, he’s known as the no-drama Obama,” said Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, a Democrat from Missouri. “So if there’s drama, he’s the one who has to deal with it.”
Obama’s restrained approach — at least in public — is seen by some close to him as a way to keep his powder dry in case he has to have a blunt, difficult conversation with Biden.
“He’s all in on the Democratic ticket. It doesn’t matter who our nominee is, he’s going to work his ass off to make sure that person wins in November,” said one person who speaks regularly with Obama.
Obama was at Biden’s side at two fundraising events this year, including the one in Los Angeles last month. George Clooney later admitted he was shocked by Biden’s conduct.
Biden woke up the day before the fundraiser — after several days of G7 meetings — and had to fly through five time zones overnight to get there, as campaign chairman Jeffrey Katzenberg was eager to host the Hollywood-themed event, and Clooney told the campaign he was only available for one day given his shooting schedule.
Even on the way there, Obama questioned the wisdom of putting such a heavy burden on a presidential candidate’s schedule.
“He was the same man we all saw at the debate,” Clooney wrote in an essay in The New York Times this week, imploring Biden to step aside.
It was those words that enraged some Biden loyalists, who suggested Obama was behind Clooney’s op-ed. The former president, who is friends with the actor, knew it was coming but didn’t try to stop it. For some Obama defenders, it was a way to maintain neutrality, but for some Biden loyalists, it was a sign of deep betrayal.
Obama spent much longer backstage and onstage with Biden than Clooney did. Others who were there at the time attributed the president’s condition to jet lag. The infamous video of Obama leading Biden offstage was more a result of the former president’s desire to leave, according to people familiar with the matter.
An Obama aide declined to comment or say whether he still believes Biden’s condition is related to jet lag.
As House Democrats filed out of their closed-door caucus meeting Tuesday morning, many felt the worst was over for the president. Most of the anti-Biden comments during the meeting came from members who had already called for him to resign.
Then Pelosi went on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” for a long-awaited appearance Wednesday morning, and she used the fact that she was on a show the president loves to watch to cast deep doubt on his candidacy. In private, she told her colleagues not to make fun of Biden while NATO leaders were in town. But even more Democrats saw her remarks as an open door to issuing statements calling on Biden to step aside.
Pelosi has known Biden for decades. She is three years older than him. She has been one of his most ardent defenders, including during the 2020 primaries. She is done as Speaker and has nothing left to lose.
“I think if Biden were to step down as the nominee at this point, she would emerge as the most important Democratic leader,” said one House Democrat. “She’s the one who in a situation like this, particularly generationally, has the credibility to speak out on something that’s so sensitive and important.”
Pelosi is expected to fly back to San Francisco on Friday.
CNN’s Annie Grayer contributed to this report.