Amid Kamala Harris' continued media honeymoon along with their laughable attempts at trying to "untether" her from Joe Biden's record (and her own), former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's pivotal role in the forced ouster of Joe Biden from the presidential race has become almost an afterthought for our supposed intellectual betters in the mainstream press.
In fact, it's largely been treated in elite journo circles as either a "brilliant" move to "save democracy" and/or something that's just "business as usual" in Washington, DC even though it most certainly is not.
Though it has been previously reported that Sen. Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) had a hand in the negotiations to convince Biden to step to the side, Schumer's role has been portrayed as a reluctant one, as one of someone who really didn't want to get in the middle of the infighting after Biden's disastrous debate performance outside of some sense of loyalty to his (former) longtime Congressional colleague.
Except a new report from the New York Times of all places shines more light onto Schumer's role, and as it turns out, he was much more of a central player in twisting the dagger than previously thought:
So when Senate Democrats gathered privately with President Biden’s top political advisers last month to assess Mr. Biden’s capacity to remain the Democratic presidential nominee, the decision by the normally taciturn [Sen. Jack] Reed to be among the first to speak was notable. What was even more remarkable was what he said, according to two attendees: If Mr. Biden wanted to stay in the race after a disastrous debate performance that underscored concerns about his condition and mental acuity, he should submit to examination by two independent neurologists who were willing to report their findings at a news conference.
It was a striking position for a Democratic loyalist to take, and one that underscored the near unanimity among Senate Democrats in the room that day that Mr. Biden should not continue as the party’s nominee. It was just one of a series of extraordinary moments during a closed-door session on July 11 that would lead Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York and the majority leader, to schedule a face-to-face meeting with the president days later in which he urged Mr. Biden to withdraw.
The effort by Mr. Schumer and Senate Democrats to persuade Mr. Biden to step aside was a more pivotal factor than previously known in bringing about the president’s exit from the race, as he found himself with scant support in the chamber that had been his political home for 36 years.
Even before that, at an early July luncheon among Senate Democrats, there was palpable anger among the Democrats in attendance, with very few (three of the 12 who spoke, according to the Times) being okay with Biden staying at the top of the ticket.
Per the Times, two days later, the meeting between the Senators and senior Biden campaign officials/advisers took place. Schumer was under the impression that the Biden camp would relay the deep concerns of himself and his Senate colleagues to Biden, but was furious when he found out later that they hadn't.
It was from that point that Schumer took matters into his own hands, and the one-on-one meeting he had with Biden in Delaware, where he asked him to consider withdrawing, took place that weekend.
The new details dovetail with a New York Post report from mid-July on how there had been a calculated "palace coup" of sorts in place for weeks to force Biden out of the race, but which took on a sense of urgency after how he performed at the debate.
Sure reads like an orchestrated couphttps://t.co/TUz8LekdBM
— Stephen L. Miller (@redsteeze) August 29, 2024
Look, it is well known that among politicos there are very few "real friends" on Capitol Hill as the knives are always out and being sharpened, which Biden was reminded of the hard way after the machinations of Pelosi, Schumer, and Biden's former boss, Barack Obama, began.
Still, I guess what fascinates me is how even with the fresh reporting on the behind-the-scenes goings-on that led up to Biden's brief announcement there are still very few in the press who seem keen on asking perhaps the most important question of all:
How much did these Democrat leaders know about Biden's cognitive decline and when did they first find out about it? It's a very relevant question and one that is central to the even deeper question of how extensive was the cover-up - and how far up the chain did it go? Further, who was "leading" America on Biden's especially bad days?
Jill? Kamala? Ron Klain?
The lack of curiosity here from the media is staggering especially when you consider how they would have reacted had this happened during the Trump administration and President Trump stepped aside to make way for Vice President Mike Pence to take the nomination reins under similar circumstances. It would have been turned into a full-blown scandal, and rightly so.
The move-along, nothing-to-see mentality among reporters on this issue is an insult to the intelligence of the American people. And while we can't rely on these media outlets to ask the tough questions of who knew what and when, we can and should be able to rely on Republicans on up to Trump and his vice presidential nominee, JD Vance, to raise the issue, especially as it relates to what Kamala Harris had to have known about Biden's fitness (or lack thereof) to lead but kept quiet about in the interest of furthering her own ambitions.
Related: Say What? Kamala Spox Steps in It Big Time With Response to Critics of Joint Harris-Walz Interview
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