President-elect Donald Trump had a 95 percent chance of defeating President Joe Biden before he dropped out of the race in July, the president’s pollsters estimated, the New York Times reported Friday.
Biden said two weeks ago he believed he could have defeated Trump if he had stayed in the race.
The comment caused Vice President Kamala Harris to reportedly say she was “disappointed” in Biden’s comment after she the president against allegations of his deteriorating mental acuity, never disclosing any information that team Biden did not want aired publicly.
The pollster’s forecast was published in a Times article about Sen. Chuck Schumer’s (D-NY) July 13, 2024, 45-minute meeting with Biden in which he asked him to drop out of the race.
Schumer, who defended Biden’s cognition for years and publicly remains steadfast that Biden’s mental acuity is solid, used Biden’s mental acuity as “a central piece” of his argument to force Biden to drop out, according to half a dozen people who participated interviews for a book, reported by the Times:
If there were a secret ballot among Democratic senators, Mr. Schumer would tell the president, no more than five would say he should continue running. Mr. Biden’s own pollsters assessed that he had about a 5 percent chance of prevailing against Donald J. Trump, Mr. Schumer would tell him — information that was apparently news to the president. And if the president refused to step aside, the senator would argue, the consequences for Democrats and Mr. Biden’s own legacy after a half-century of public service would be catastrophic.
“If you run and you lose to Trump, and we lose the Senate, and we don’t get back the House, that 50 years of amazing, beautiful work goes out the window,” Mr. Schumer said. “But worse — you go down in American history as one of the darkest figures.”
He would end with a directive. “If I were you,” Mr. Schumer said, “I wouldn’t run, and I’m urging you not to run.”
Schumer was not the only Democrat who reportedly forced Biden to drop out. Others include Barack Obama, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD), Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), and Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY).
Many of Biden’s advisors, however, did not agree with them. “We can get through it,” top Biden adviser Steve Ricchetti said, according to the book. “We think our allies on the Hill are wrong.”
Biden’s aides successfully covered up his health until he stepped into the spotlight for July’s debate, according to Wall Street Journal interviews with nearly 50 people, including many who had direct knowledge of the operation. White House aides still appear to be engaged in covering up the scandal by denying key aspects of the Journal’s report, such as the degree to which Biden was insulated from everyone in the world except a few top senior aides and his family.
Interviews conducted by the Journal reveal Biden’s aides protected the “diminished” president from cabinet members, donors, pollsters, and top Democrat lawmakers, who might have undermined the aides’ directives. Biden’s aides reportedly excluded negative stories about the president in his daily news clips, including negative polling about his 2024 campaign.
Wendell Husebo is a political reporter with Breitbart News and a former RNC War Room Analyst. He is the author of Politics of Slave Morality. Follow Wendell on “X” @WendellHusebø or on Truth Social @WendellHusebo.
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