Behind the Curtain: Committee to Unelect the President

Why it matters: This loose anti-Biden network is growing by the day — and is circulating polls showing Democrats would shoot from sure losers to big winners with a new ticket. Some donors are talking of a massive financial commitment to any non-Biden presidential ticket.

• These Democrats see the race in stark, black-and-white terms: Just three states matter — Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania. That's the Blue Wall, all of which Biden won in 2020.
• And they see an obvious solution: Forget the niceties of backing Biden or even Vice President Harris. Be ruthless about finding the two people most likely to win those three states.

How it works: The anti-Biden Democrats are trading texts, emails and polling, fighting fellow Democrats on TV and X, and circulating stories and arguments by sympathetic journalists and columnists, including Ezra Klein and Matt Yglesias.

• Many are in conversation with lawmakers to push their leaders to squeeze Biden and his inner circle. They know Biden and his family seem unmovable — so they hope for the use of overwhelming force by the Obamas + Clintons + Schumer + Jeffries + Pelosi.

Members of this notional committee tell us there's no hidden hand — no command and control. Instead, these are all people who've worked together on past campaigns.

• "No one is more than one person away from everyone else," a central player told us. And almost all are one step away from former presidents Obama or Clinton.

James Carville, who helped propel Bill Clinton into the Oval Office, told us Clinton and Obama are sending a clear message by vanishing after they tweeted support for Biden the day after the debate.

• "Silence is a very loud form of speech," Carville said. "No one is saying 'come hell or high water.'"
• Obama has spoken privately with former Speaker Pelosi over their "concerns" about Biden's viability, CNN reports.

Reality check: No one's sure the pressure campaign is working. It all depends on Biden, who controls the party's delegates and cannot be defeated for the nomination if he stays in — no matter how bleak the outlook for November.

• "You need a psychiatrist more than a spin doctor," a veteran operative told me.

The big picture: A "fatalism" and "sense of resignation" grip the party from coast to coast. "The Clinton diaspora is freaking the hell out," said one alumnus of Clinton's White House. "But all these people going on the record aren't helping. All it seems to have done is cause the Bidens to dig in deeper."

• In what one operative called a "donor strike," top party benefactors — who don't want to be named, because they know a donor-led revolt would backfire — are moving money away from Biden, and into House and Senate campaigns as a hedge against a victory by former President Trump.

The committee includes:

1. Former Obama aides: The strained relationship between Obama and Biden extends to their former aides, including David Axelrod (Obama's ruthlessly pragmatic chief strategist) and the influential "Pod Save America" guys. Biden has reportedly called Axelrod a "prick," and threw shade at him — "Oh! You're kidding" — during Monday's call-in on "Morning Joe." The pod guys — Obama alumni Jon Favreau, Jon Lovett, Tommy Vietor and Dan Pfeiffer — have irritated Biden's camp by arguing for a new candidate. Lovett writes that it's "hard to deny that in the two weeks since the debate, it's the arrogant and small Joe Biden we've seen most."
2. Former Clinton advisers: Carville, appearing all over the cable dial, says unsparingly that a new candidate is inevitable, whether the president admits it or not. Keeping him would be "an idiotic choice for the future of this country," Carville told Anderson Cooper on CNN.
3. Elected Dems: Massive pressure is building from rank-and-file members of the Democratic caucus. One Democratic senator (Peter Welch of Vermont) and 17 House Democrats have publicly called for Biden to drop out. Scores more are furious at the White House for pushing them to support a president they view as unelectable.
4. Swing-seat Dems: This is the group that really matters. Vulnerable Democrats have a clear-eyed view of the president's prospects. These Dems will abandon him — some already have — if they sense their seats are in jeopardy.
5. The donor class: George Clooney, who headlined the largest fundraiser in Democratic Party history last month, is the leading voice of a growing number of Hollywood types who want Biden to end his candidacy. The group includes Netflix co-founder Reed Hastings and Endeavor CEO Ari Emanuel (Rahm's brother).
6. Late-night liberals: Stephen Colbert — who moderated a major Biden fundraiser at Radio City in March — strongly suggested the president should step aside: "I think that Biden debated as well as Abraham Lincoln, if you dug him up right now." Jon Stewart has escalated pleas for the nominee to be someone else. He hosted Favreau and Vietor on his podcast yesterday.
7. N.Y. Times Opinion: Debate-night columns by Tom Friedman and Nick Kristoff gave way to full-throated editorials — all saying Biden must go.
8. Biden aides busily leaking: "Some longtime aides and advisers to President Biden," the N.Y. Times reports, "have become increasingly convinced that he will have to step aside from the campaign, and in recent days they have been trying to come up with ways to persuade him that he should."

Between the lines: Two prominent ex-Biden aides — former White House communications director Kate Bedingfield and press secretary Jen Psaki — have suggested Harris as a promising alternative.

• Neither specifically called for Biden to step aside. But both have softly criticized the campaign's strategy and said he needs to put forward a coherent path to victory.

What they're saying: Axelrod — who's making the case for Biden's withdrawal two or three times a day as CNN's senior political commentator — told us he aims to be "both realistic and respectful."

• "President Biden is a historic figure, and a lot of that is gonna be tainted if he persists and loses this race," Axelrod told us. "The people around him have [a collective] hundreds of years of campaign experience. They know how to interpret data. They know how to read the moment. It's just a question of whether their affection for him clouds that."

Noah Bressner contributed reporting ... Last 13 columns.

Read Axios' Behind the Curtain columns:

• Behind the Curtain: Mad media vs. beat-up Biden
• Behind the Curtain: Biden's credibility crisis