XPost: alt.fan.rush-limbaugh, alt.sodomites.barack-obama, or.politics
XPost: sac.politics

Biden announced exit from 2024 race Sunday after weeks of vowing to
continue re-election run

A list of former President Obama's allies and former advisers helped lead
the charge in calling on President Biden to drop out of the 2024 race
before he officially ended his campaign on Sunday afternoon.

Biden officially dropped out of the 2024 race after weeks of increasing pressure from traditional Democrat allies to bow out after his disastrous debate performance against former President Trump last month, which put concerns surrounding his mental acuity and 81 years of age under
increasing scrutiny.

"My fellow Democrats, I have decided not to accept the nomination and to
focus all my energies on my duties as President for the remainder of my
term," Biden posted on X after he dropped out of the race on Sunday
afternoon.

"My very first decision as the party nominee in 2020 was to pick Kamala
Harris as my Vice President. And it’s been the best decision I’ve made.
Today I want to offer my full support and endorsement for Kamala to be the nominee of our party this year. Democrats — it’s time to come together and
beat Trump. Let’s do this," he said in a separate social media post.

Among some of the most noteworthy voices calling on Biden to bow out were allies of Obama's, including his former adviser, David Axelrod, who said
this month that Biden is "not winning this race." Biden served as Obama's
vice president from 2009 to 2017.

"There are certain immutable facts of life," Axelrod said in an interview
with CNN while discussing Biden's age and leadership. "Those were
painfully obvious on that debate stage. The president just … hasn't come
to grips with it. He’s not winning this race."

Axelrod formerly served as Obama's chief campaign strategist, and he said
Biden is used to fighting "his way back from political defeats and against
the odds."

"So, his psyche is that he can beat anybody and any long odds," he said
this month. "What he can’t beat is Father Time."

"And that’s really the concern here. It’s not about his record," Axelrod continued.

Axelrod was soon followed by actor George Clooney calling on Biden to drop
out of the race in a bombshell op-ed that was published just weeks after
the Hollywood star co-hosted Biden, alongside Obama, for a ritzy campaign
event in Los Angeles. Clooney has long had a personal friendship with
Obama and former first lady Michelle Obama, including vacationing with the first couple in previous years.

"It’s devastating to say it, but the Joe Biden I was with three weeks ago
at the fundraiser was not the Joe ‘big F-ing deal’ Biden of 2010," Clooney wrote in a New York Times op-ed. "He wasn’t even the Joe Biden of 2020. He
was the same man we all witnessed at the debate."

Another ally in Obama's orbit, Jon Favreau, who served as former director
of speech writing for Obama, also called on Biden to drop out of the race
this month, saying he attended the fundraiser in L.A. with Clooney and
Obama and saw Biden's state of mental acuity.

"It was not surprising to any of us who were at the fundraiser. I was
there. Clooney was exactly right, and every single person I talked to at
the fundraiser thought the same thing, except for the people working for
Joe Biden, or at least they didn't say that," Jon Favreau said during an appearance on CNN this month.

"I remember my wife, Emily, turned to me after the fundraiser and said,
‘What are we going to do?’ And I said, ‘Well, there is a debate in a week. Either he’ll do well in the debate, and we'll think he was just tired
because he flew all the way back from Europe, and that'll be that, or
he'll be like this at the debate and then the whole country will be
talking about it. So, here we are."

Favreau, alongside former Obama advisers Jon Lovett and Tommy Vietor –
known collectively as the "Obama Bros" when they worked in the White House
– dedicated the majority of a podcast episode of "Pod Save America" this
month to trashing Biden.

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/obama-allies-likely-worked-behind-scenes- pressure-campaign-biden-drop-out

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)