“President Dementia AKA Joe Biden”

Hollywood was quick to react to the news that President Joe Biden was ending his bid for reelection and endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris.

Barbra Streisand, a Democratic supporter, wrote Sunday on X that “we should be grateful for his upholding of our democracy.” While many paid tribute to Biden’s presidency, others wondered about the future.

Joe Biden has long had a reputation for taking an age to make decisions and agonising over problems until the very last minute. He really outdid himself this time.

All US presidential candidates, by definition, possess a giant ego. But Biden’s stubborn insistence that he was the only person capable of defeating Donald Trump deprived the Democratic Party of valuable time to introduce some new, younger faces to America.

He began this presidential journey by declaring that he wanted to act as a “bridge” to “an entire generation of leaders” while campaigning in March 2020 with Kamala Harris, who became his vice-president; Gretchen Whitmer, the governor of Michigan; and Cory Booker, a senator for New Jersey and former city mayor.

While undoubtedly the right call to make, Joe Biden’s belated decision to step aside Sunday, and endorse Kamala Harris for president, comes too late to stop ascendant Republican nominee Donald Trump from winning a second presidential.

What’s more, the Democratic establishment will only have itself to blame when the party loses control of the White House, after trying and failing to pull a fast one over the incredulous American people.

Before today, I was inclined to agree with Noah that Joe Biden was toast — unelectable even against Donald Trump, with a campaign irreparably damaged from all the major Democratic figures admitting what we could all see: that Biden would be incapable of winning or serving another term. But, I did not really believe until today that Biden would drop out of the race. After all, while Biden has always been a hollow man and a transactional politician who would never stand up to the demands of his party’s various constituent groups, the one thing he’d never before been asked to surrender was his own position. (Even his 1987 withdrawal was done in good part to retreat to his perch as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee during the pivotal Robert Bork hearings.) But the pressure from donors and Democratic power brokers was too much in the end. Biden, or someone in his corner, finally threw in the towel.

President Trump writes on Truth Social that Mr. Biden ‘is certainly not fit to serve — and never was,’ soon after the announcement.

Republicans in Congress are citing President Biden’s announcement that he will not seek reelection as evidence that he is unfit to serve the rest of his term and calling for the president to resign from office immediately.

“Crooked Joe Biden was not fit to run for President, and is certainly not fit to serve — And never was,” President Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform soon after Mr. Biden abandoned his reelection campaign.

Trump added that Mr. Biden only became President because of “Lies, Fake News, and not leaving his Basement.”

Joe Biden has just announced he’s not running for re-election and will support Vice President Kamala Harris’s candidacy instead.

The announcement came as a shock to the people who work at the White House and to campaign aides, one of whom told Politico, "We’re all finding out… pic.twitter.com/NATz4OcR5Q

— Michael Shellenberger (@shellenberger) July 21, 2024

A US congressman has said he decided to join calls for Joe Biden to exit the presidential race after he claimed the 81-year-old appeared not to recognise him at a recent event.

Seth Moulton, a Democratic congressman from Massachusetts, was one of the first Democrats to call for Biden to drop out of the race shortly after his disastrous debate performance last month. On Friday, Moulton ramped up his efforts to oust the president from the 2024 ticket in a damning op-ed for the Boston Globe.

Moulton said he met Biden in a small group for the 80th anniversary of D-day in Normandy on 6 June. “For the first time, he didn’t seem to recognise me,” the Democrat wrote. “Of course, that can happen as anyone ages but, as I watched the disastrous debate a few weeks ago, I have to admit that what I saw in Normandy was part of a deeper problem.

I bet there are many more stories like this. Jill is evil.

Joe Biden’s advisers believe the United States president does not want to bow out of the November election before Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s trip to Washington this week, as Biden is unwilling to give Netanyahu “the satisfaction” given the two leaders’ tensions over the war in Gaza, The New York Times reported on Friday.

The report, citing several unnamed people close to Biden, came after the Axios news site on Friday cited top Democrats as saying Biden had resigned himself to the pressure on him to quit, and could bow out as soon as this weekend.

Being a large donor to the Democratic Party is like having elective surgery. You know it’s the right thing to do, but you also know it will be painful. You are often going to be thrown under the bus by the very candidates you support.

I would know. I maxed out my giving in the last four presidential elections to the Democratic candidate: Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, and Biden again, this cycle.

Hard to believe his own family is propping him up like a straw man.

President Biden is facing increasing pressure from Democratic leaders to reconsider his reelection bid. Top Democrats have met with him in recent days to convey one message: His continued candidacy is hurting the Democratic Party’s ability to control either chamber of Congress next year. Former president Barack Obama has separately told allies that Biden’s own path to victory has greatly diminished.

But Biden and his campaign advisers have remained defiant, insisting that he will not drop out of the race. Biden tested positive for the coronavirus on Wednesday and is quarantining in his vacation home in Rehoboth Beach, Del.

Primary take away – They do not have to choose Kamala.

BREAKING NEWS: Multiples sources outline the apparent state of play on Biden at this time:

* plans to announce withdrawal from nomination as early as this weekend, with Sunday most likely

* Jon Meacham polishing up remarks

* Biden with NOT resign the presidency

* Biden will… https://t.co/l0LrfDTvOL

— Mark Halperin (@MarkHalperin) July 18, 2024

h/t AndyCanuck

MILWAUKEE — A “f–king stubborn” President Biden is still refusing to relinquish the Democratic nomination, sources close to the 81-year-old president told The Post Thursday — despite speculation that he may step aside this weekend after former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi joined mutineers urging him to retire.

Axios’ Jim VandeHei and Mike Allen — two of the best-sourced and most respected political journalists in Washington — reported Thursday that “several top Democrats” believe the commander-in-chief is under such intense pressure that he will indeed step aside.

On President Biden, the tragic Ali–Holmes fight, and knowing when to quit.

As he battles an effort in his own party to get him to step aside after his disastrous debate performance, President Biden likes to use a boxing analogy: “When you get knocked down, you get back up.”

But there is another lesson he should take from boxing, which is that at a certain point, it is better to stay down.

Turns out, Joe Scarborough wasn’t telling the truth when for weeks and months he was talking up Biden’s chances of winning, discounting any polling that indicated the opposite. We now find out that Scarborough knew better all along.

Barack Obama is understood to have told friends that President Biden must seriously reconsider whether he should remain as the Democratic Party’s White House nominee.

The former president studied polling data in recent days and is said to have concluded that Biden, 81, who served for eight years as his vice-president, has a narrowing chance of beating Donald Trump.