CHRIS CRUCIAL: The beginning of the end for Biden? 🤔

PLUS: The narrowing electoral map

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1. What the end looks like

Let me first say that I don’t KNOW what President Joe Biden is going to do as it relates to the increasing calls from within his party for him to step aside as the nominee this fall.

Only he (and maybe his wife Jill and his sister Valerie) really know what’s going through his mind — and whether his assertion earlier this week that he’s all in on the race is changing.

But, a few things happened on Thursday that make me think that the end for Biden as the presidential nominee is nearing.

Consider:

• The New York Times reported that “some longtime aides and advisers to President Biden 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.” This isn’t the random musings of some junior aide in the Treasury Department about Biden. These are people close to — or in — his inner circle. When those sorts of folks start realizing the gig is up, well then the gig is almost up.

• The New York Times reported — and it was subsequently confirmed by NBC News — that the Biden campaign as polled on how strong Vice President Kamala Harris runs against Trump. This confirms my long-held belief that a) Biden thinks Harris can’t beat Trump and b) Biden thinks he is the only Democrat who can beat Trump. The attempt to persuade Biden that he is wrong about that is critical to getting him out of the race. That polling has been done as away to show him numbers that make the point suggest that that persuasion effort is well underway.

• MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough, someone who is friendly with Biden, said Thursday morning that the belief within the president’s inner circle is that former President Barack Obama is working to push Biden out. “One thing that we do have to underline here — just so viewers can follow what’s going on behind the scenes — is the Biden campaign and many Democratic officials do believe that Barack Obama is quietly working behind the scenes to orchestrate this.” This sort of paranoia — everybody is out to get us!!! — is usually one of the signs that it’s about to be all over.

• Axios reported Thursday that a “deluge” of Democratic Members of Congress are expected to call for Biden to step aside once the NATO summit concludes in Washington today. Here’s the key bit from that reporting: “House Democrats are poised to issue a flood of new statements urging Joe Biden to exit the 2024 race regardless of what happens at the president's NATO press conference, more than half a dozen lawmakers tell Axios.”

Now, look. Biden could be great in his press conference tonight. (It’s now set for 6:30 pm.) He could look totally in control, with it and able to answer every question that reporters throw at him.

But I continue to struggle to see how that changes much of anything. While Biden’s press conference will be covered by all three broadcast networks live.— and be litigated on cable TV panels before and after the event for hours — there’s not going to be 51 million people tuning in. (That’s how many people watched the June 27 debate between Biden and Donald Trump.)

To me, the cake is baked. Large majorities of people thought Biden was too old LONG before the debate. His performance in the debate was horrible — and affirmed for lots and lots of people, including many who like him, that he can’t do the job for four more years.

This data point, from a new Washington Post-ABC News poll, says it all for me:

You can’t get 85% of the American public to say ice cream tastes good. Or that bowling alleys are underrated for birthday parties. (They are!)

I just don’t know how you win with that number. And I have no idea how Biden changes it. New York Democratic Rep. Ritchie Torres put it well in a tweet Thursday morning:

The President did not just have one “bad debate.” The reality we saw with our own lying eyes is evidence of a deeper challenge.

The notion that the President is going to be saved by this interview or that press conference misses the forest for trees.

I will respectfully listen to the President’s press conference tonight and the interview on Monday evening but the ability to survive a single public appearance is the bear minimum of what should be expected of a Democratic Nominee. Neither the press conference tonight nor the NBC interview on Monday evening will offer the President the political salvation he seems to be seeking.

That. Exactly. Post-debate, Biden has been backing slowly into a corner from which he can’t escape. It appears to me that his inner circle is starting to realize that fact.

2. Biden’s tricky electoral math

A month ago, I wrote in this space that Biden’s path to 270 electoral votes — and a 2nd term — was narrowing considerably.

Nevada, Arizona, Georgia and North Carolina all looked to be moving toward Trump. Meaning that Biden desperately needed to sweep Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania to win.

The Biden campaign admitted as much in a memo on Thursday. Wrote campaign chair Jen O'Malley Dillon and campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez:

Most importantly, we maintain multiple pathways to 270 electoral votes. Right now, winning the Blue Wall states - MI, WI, and PA - is the clearest pathway to that aim, but we also believe that the sunbelt states are not out of reach. The consensus across internal and public polling is that the toplines in the Blue Wall states largely remain within the margin-of-error

That’s largely correct — although I would quibble with the idea that Biden “maintain[s] multiple pathways to 270 electoral votes.”

To get to 270 electoral votes, Biden needs to not only win Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania but also get the single electoral vote out of Nebraska’s 2nd district and take 3 of the 4 electoral votes in Maine.

And that math assumes that the only states Biden loses that he won in 2020 are Arizona, Georgia and Nevada.

Which isn’t easy! And that’s to get to just 270!

Biden’s path was always going to be narrow because of the increasing Republican lean of the electoral college. His debate performance, which appears to have subtracted roughly 2 points from him nationally and in swing states, made that path all the more narrow. That his campaign is acknowledging it — while arguing they can still thread that needle — speaks to the direness of his current political situation.

3. About that Trump-Jeffrey Epstein story…

Once a day — at least — I get an email from someone demanding that I write about newly-released documents showing the links between sexual predator Jeffrey Epstein and Donald Trump.

At issue is 200 pages of grand jury testimony from 2006 which were released last week. Liberals have been all over social media insisting that it’s proof positive of Trump’s close relationship with Epstein.

California Democratic Rep. Ted Lieu has been pushing the idea particularly aggressively.

“Something I’ve heard that doesn’t seem to be being covered are the Epstein files,” Lieu told reporters on July 9. “These files were released. And, like, Donald Trump is sort of all over this. There are pictures of him with Epstein. He’s taken multiple plane flights with Epstein with young girls on board. He’s in call logs with Epstein.”

The problem? Trump’s name is never mentioned in the newly-released documents, according to the Washington Post’s Fact Checker.

As The Post writes:

As we have documented, 17 women have claimed Trump engaged in sexual misconduct. A Manhattan jury found that Trump sexually abused and defamed one woman on our list. But no credible allegation has emerged to connect Trump to any of Epstein’s crimes.

Lieu is a member of Congress who doesn’t need to rely on dubious social media posts for his information — especially if he’s going to make a statement like this. Trump wasn’t mentioned in the latest batch of Epstein documents. He was barely mentioned in the earlier batches. Rest assured — if Trump were prominently mentioned, it would have been a huge story.

My view on this — and the slew of other half-truths and mistruths that Democrats seek to slap on Trump — is that there is SO MUCH that is true and damning about him that you don’t need to chase these ghosts. Just go with ALL of the things you know he’s said and done.

NOTABLE QUOTABLE

“You’re worried if he knows which direction he’s going or whether he’s going to fall or what he’s going to forget.” — An unnamed senior European diplomat on Joe Biden via Politico

ONE GOOD CHART

This pie chart speaks to me (via Matt Surelee)

SONG OF THE DAY

Today is my younger son’s 12th birthday. To celebrate, I let him pick the song of the day. He went with “Hell N Back.” by Bakar. what can I say — the kid’s got good taste!

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