‘Unhelpful’: Top Democrats say Jill Biden’s memoir is reopening 2024 wounds
WASHINGTON— Democrats have spent nearly two years trying to get through the 2024 presidential election. Now Jill Biden’s new memoir is forcing them to relive it.
His new book, “A View from the East Wing,” released Tuesday, is already drawing harsh criticism from top Democrats; some say it is a poorly timed and misleading account of the events that led to her husband losing the presidency.
Florida trial lawyer John Morgan, a major fundraiser for Biden’s 2024 campaign, told The Times: “It’s no use… It never works to tear at a healing scab.” “To me, that was the real problem. He loved life and didn’t want it to end.”
Such frustrations erupted last week as the former First Lady began promoting her book; This includes a sit-down interview that aired on CBS News on Sunday, in which he said he thought the incumbent president was having a stroke while watching the 2024 presidential debate.
“I was scared because I had never seen Joe like that before or since. Never,” Biden said. The moment “scared me to death,” he added.
His words hit like a gut punch to Democrats, who reacted similarly in real time but were told for months by the Biden campaign that their concerns were being exaggerated. As the midterms approached, some complained that Biden was reopening a sensitive issue, particularly the question of who knows about Biden’s aging and cognitive decline.
“What I care about is what happens in the future,” Dan Pfeiffer, host of “Pod Save America,” a popular progressive podcast, said on the show Thursday. “What bothers me most is not the timeline of events, but whether Democratic leaders will now reckon with the massive breach of trust that has occurred because of how all of this was handled.”
Meghan Hays, former White House aide to Joe Biden Here’s what he said about C-SPAN’s “Truce” While she understands that Jill Biden is trying to sell books, she says her efforts are not helping the party ahead of the midterm elections.
“There’s a lot of momentum in our favor … and when we get back to the debates about age and the election at 24, it’s never going to be a good place for Democrats,” Hays said. “I think it’s a tough place to be.”
The Democratic Party found itself stuck in a similar dynamic earlier this month, when the Democratic National Committee released a 192-page report examining the long-awaited 2024 loss. After coming under intense pressure from Democratic Party officials, committee chairman Ken Martin shared the post-election autopsy and apologized for how he handled it.
The report was wrong to focus on the “identity politics” of Kamala Harris and Democrats, but did not address Biden’s decision to seek re-election due to health concerns and the hasty selection of Harris instead.
The former First Lady writes that her goal in her book was to “set the record straight” about what happened during the debate that led to President Trump’s return to the White House and in the months that followed, according to the Atlantic, which obtained a copy of the book before its publication.
At one point, she writes, she even suspected that her husband might have accidentally spoiled the cough syrup after taking it. In the CBS interview, Biden maintained that he has not seen any signs of cognitive decline during his time as president.
“He was the same, the same essence of Joe Biden, but yes, he was slowing down. He was getting older,” he said. “You know, it’s a very busy job. I think it ages you quickly.”
Morgan, a former Biden fundraiser, said he did not believe the first lady was telling the truth in her memoir.
“It’s good if you like fiction,” Morgan said. She added that her claim that she had never witnessed her husband behave in a similar manner since the argument “defies the smell test.”
“His keys should have been taken long before that night,” Morgan said.
Michael LaRosa, the first lady’s former press secretary, called Democrats’ reaction to her new memoir “pretty brutal.”
“There is a deep reservoir of frustration among the ‘old-timers’ who believe they and the President are enabling the culture around them rather than challenging it,” LaRosa wrote. “So now they seem to be challenging him.”
While many Democrats have publicly expressed their discomfort with Biden’s resurfacing, others don’t think the former first lady’s comments will have an impact on the upcoming election.
“This is not going to be part of a conversation in the election. It’s going to be part of a conversation in Washington because that’s what Washington does, but it’s not going to move the needle that matters in New Hampshire or other states,” said Steve Schale, a Democratic strategist who ran a pro-Biden super PAC in the 2020 election cycle.
Schale was blunt: “He sells books.”
Even if that’s the case, Republicans are taking notice.
In a post published on Truth Social on Friday, President Trump he looked cheerful Noting that Biden “finally admitted” during the “spectacular and highly acclaimed 2024 Presidential Debate” that she didn’t know what her husband’s problem was.
The President lamented the lack of compliments on the former First Lady’s performance.
“In other words, did my strong performance in this debate lead to his ignominious defeat by causing him to ‘choke’ plain and simple, as many have asked, or was it due to other reasons? No one else knows the answer to that, BUT I DO!!!” Trump wrote.
