American politics
The game behind Biden's decision – it all started with a conversation
Hans Österman
Updated 00.45 | Published 00.35
Joe Biden obscured his decision until the very end.
But as early as Saturday afternoon, he began orchestrating his defection in secret.
It all started with a phone call.
"You and Mike need to be here," he told close adviser Steve Richetti.
Quick version
At 7:46 p.m., Swedish time, Biden posted his historic announcement on X that he is dropping out of the 2024 presidential election.
The announcement was perhaps not unexpected after the turbulence of recent weeks. But he took the vast majority of his employees to bed.
His communications strategist Anita Dunn and several other advisers were told just a minute earlier, the New York Times and other US media reported.
At 7:45 p.m., Biden called them, read aloud from his letter, and thanked them for their efforts.
- Let's get it done, he said according to New York Times sources.
Then Harris found out
Kamala Harris – the vice president who quickly received the open support of Biden and other top Democrats after the announcement – had also been kept in the dark until the end.
According to media reports in the United States, she was not informed that Biden would drop out until Sunday. Politico states that the two had several phone calls during the day, but did not specify a specific time.
The defection, however, began to be orchestrated already last Saturday.
In recent days, Joe Biden has isolated himself with covid in his summer home in Rehoboth in Delaware. From there, on Saturday afternoon, local time, he called his close adviser Steve Ricchetti.
- You and Mike need to be here, he said according to the NY Times.
Mike's surname is Donilon and is Biden's chief strategist. Within a few hours, he and Steve Richetti were at the summer house, but kept a physical distance from the president so as not to risk being infected.
Worked late into the night
Work began immediately and was to continue well into the night. It had two tracks.
Mike Donilon helped Biden draft the historic letter while Steve Richetti focused on how and when the president's staff, donors and other key people would get the word.
After the failed debate against Trump on June 27, Biden has been put under intense internal pressure to drop out. For several weeks, he has been trying to turn public opinion around, but according to a high-ranking source quoted by the NY Times, he finally realized it wasn't going to work.
- He didn't make it all the way, says the informant to the newspaper's White House correspondent Katie Rogers.
According to NBC, in recent days Biden has also requested to see both open and internal opinion polls about how Kamala Harris stands in relation to Trump. According to the television company, Mike Donilon was one of the few advisers involved in giving the president the material.
Just six hours before
Biden's family and some of his other closest associates were informed of the resignation decision on Saturday, amid ongoing work to draft the letter.
According to both the NY Times and CNN, it was not finalized until Sunday. CBS states that Biden made the final decision to drop out just 6-12 hours before the tweet went out on Sunday night.
After the announcement, emotions ran high in the White House, according to a NY Times source. Some were shocked and cried, others were relieved.
According to Politico, communications strategist Anita Dunn hastily convened a conference call where staffers were assured that Biden was indeed dropping out and that the decision was fresh.
She indicated that she herself had been kept in the dark until the end and concluded with a call that everyone now needs to stand behind Kamala Harris, writes the politics site.
But in the chaos after Biden's announcement, it was difficult to reach out to everyone concerned. At 7:54 p.m., eight minutes after the dropout became official, the Biden campaign sent out an email asking recipients to donate money to "Joe and Kamala."
- We found out through the tweet. No one understands what's going on, a Democratic official told Politico.
That Biden obscured the decision until the very end was, according to New York Times sources, no coincidence. It gave him the opportunity to step down on his own terms and avoid the leaks and open feuds that have characterized his re-election campaign in recent weeks.
According to the newspaper's political reporter Maggie Haberman, the action also followed a well-known pattern with the president.
"People who know Biden well always point out that he is slow to make decisions and that no one really knows what he is doing until he suddenly decides and then everyone knows," she writes on X.
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