"Worry less": Biden camp tries to rally demoralized staff
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President Biden's campaign staff, battling low morale and disillusionment, held its second all-hands conference call in less than a week Monday with Democratic National Committee staffers.
Why it matters: Biden's team leaders are scrambling to keep their staffs motivated while trying to avoid more defections from donors and Democratic lawmakers.
"I plead with you: Worry less, do the work," California Gov. Gavin Newsom — brought on to give a pep talk — told the staffers, according to a video of his remarks obtained by Axios.
- "I think there is an old African proverb that says, 'You wanna go fast, go alone. You wanna go far, go together.' And that's what this is all about."
- He added: "There's never been a president in our lifetimes — I don't know if there ever will be again — that's delivered more than President Biden. It's just a fact."
Campaign chair Jen O'Malley Dillon has been internally stoic about the fallout from Biden's disastrous debate on June 27, aides said.
- As part of her own motivational speech, she told staffers that the 81-year-old president had been personally looking over the stats of what campaign workers are doing in key states and urged them to keep at it.
- "We have to bypass the narrative out there," she said on the call.
- Principal deputy campaign manager Quentin Fulks acknowledged to the staffers that it had been a tough week and urged them to rally.
- Aides noted that the chat function was turned off for the call so they could not respond in real time with concerns.
- A Biden campaign official told Axios that chat functions are "never" enabled on staff calls.
Between the lines: The internal fallout from the debate was made worse by the White House's senior leadership appearing not to realize how deeply their own aides were impacted by watching Biden's meandering performance in Atlanta.
- At the Biden campaign headquarters in Wilmington, Del., about two dozen Biden staffers and pro-Biden influencers gathered for a watch party the night of the debate.
- As the president fumbled several answers, one person stood up and then laid down on the floor, despondent, according to a person in the room.
- When the debate's video feed was temporarily interrupted, one campaign staffer blurted out, "Oh, thank god."
- Biden campaign spokesperson Kevin Munoz told Axios that "here in HQ, we're working really hard because on winning campaigns, you work really hard. There's an immense sense of pride across our office, because we know how important and critical that work we are doing here is for the fate of our democracy."
Other Biden staffers watching the debate recounted feelings ranging from shock to anger to sincere concern about the president's health.
- "Is he okay?" a Biden aide texted another during the debate.
- Another Biden staffer recalled that given the president's energetic State of the Union address in March, "I was convinced before the debate that Biden would clean the floor with Trump."
- That staffer added that some members of their family "are panicky Democrats who have been convinced for a while that Biden was too old to run, and I'd been the one defending him. I had to reckon in real time with them that I thought they were right."
Another Biden aide said they felt "numb."
- And a final Biden aide summed it up this way: "It was, in effect, the realization of every worst-case scenario."
