Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), who publicly proclaimed after President Biden’s disastrous debate, “I’m with Joe,” has now revealed to The New York Times that he pointedly urged Biden to drop out of the race during a private meeting on July 13.
“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,” Schumer told Biden bluntly, according to The Times, which reported the “tense” encounter from the New York lawmaker’s point of view.
“But worse — you go down in American history as one of the darkest figures,” Schumer admonished Biden.
“If I were you,” Schumer said, “I wouldn’t run, and I’m urging you not to run.”
The Times described Schumer as “tired and tense” after not sleeping the night before and making a four-hour drive from Brooklyn to Biden’s beach house in Rehoboth, Del.
He had reviewed note cards to rehearse what he was going to say to the president, whose poll numbers plummeted after his weak debate performance against Donald Trump in Atlanta on June 27.
Schumer would tell Biden that if there were a secret ballot among Democratic senators, no more than five would say he should say in the race. And Schumer would tell Biden that his own pollster gave him only a 5 percent chance of beating Trump.
ABC News’s Jonathan Karl reported on July 17 that Schumer privately urged Biden to drop out of the race in that July 13 meeting in Rehoboth, a report that Schumer’s office initially dismissed.
ABC reported at the time that Schumer had a blunt conversation with Biden, arguing that it would be best if Biden dropped out of the 2024 presidential race.
But Schumer’s office pushed back.
“Unless ABC’s source is Chuck Schumer or President Joe Biden the reporting is idle speculation. Leader Schumer conveyed the views of his caucus directly to President Biden on Saturday,” Schumer’s spokesperson said in July.
Schumer insisted to reporters that he still had Biden’s back.
“I’m with Joe,” Schumer told reporters in July, whenever asked about Biden’s embarrassing debate performance and sagging poll number.
But now that Biden has delivered his final farewell address to the nation and is set to leave the White House by Monday, Schumer has revealed the role he played along with former Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) in pushing Biden off the ticket in a late bid to save the 2024 election for his party.
The Times reported that Schumer could hear the president shouting when he arrived at Biden’s beach house that hot July day.
Biden was finishing up a heated Zoom call with a small group of House lawmakers who were raising their concerns that he would lose to Trump and drag down Democratic Senate and House candidates along with him.
Schumer was worried that Biden would feel cornered and dig in even more.
The Times reported that Schumer had been concerned “for months” that Biden would lose to Trump and cost Democrats any chance of keeping control of the Senate and winning back the House.
But he didn’t think Biden wasn’t capable of doing the job, even though he often rambled in their weekly conversations and sometimes couldn’t remember why he called Schumer, according to The Times.
Schumer had vouched for Biden’s mental acuity only a few months before, when he told reporters in the Capitol on Feb. 13 that concerns about Biden’s physical and mental condition were “right-wing propaganda.”
“I talk to President Biden, you know, regularly, sometimes several times in a week, or usually several times in a week. His mental acuity is great. It’s fine. It’s as good as it’s been over the years,” Schumer declared in mid-February.
The Democratic leader was asked by NBC’s Kristen Welker during a recent interview whether he “and other top Democrats misled” Americans about Biden’s “mental acuity.”
“Look, we didn’t,” Schumer answered tersely, before defending Biden’s record and character.
“The legislation we passed, one of the most significant groups of legislation since Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society,” Schumer said, referring to Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, which included a host of energy and climate provisions.
Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), the ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee and a longtime colleague of Schumer’s in the Senate and House, confirmed that Schumer acted on behalf of the majority of Senate Democrats in asking Biden to drop out of the race.
“First of all, Chuck Schumer and Joe Biden have a long relationship. Chuck was a credible and persuasive connection because they go back to the years working on Judiciary Committee issues,” Wyden told CNN’s Kasie Hunt. “That was a real common bond for them, so I think that was the right move for Senate Democrats to reach out through Senator Schumer.”
Wyden said Schumer was “the person” to deliver the blunt message to Biden that Senate Democrats didn’t think he could win and would only weigh down other Democratic candidates.
“Certainly, Senator Schumer talks to all of us. The big joke is he knows all of our phone numbers by heart. So yes, there was no question that he was going to do this. He was the person to do it. Those years of working together … made him a good fit for it,” Wyden told CNN.
