Barack Obama is refusing to respond to bombshell reports that he is secretly working to oust Democrat President Joe Biden as the party’s candidate for the November election.
According to an earlier report from The Liberty Daily, Biden’s campaign believes that Obama is secretly coordinating the growing push for the president to drop out of the race, “Morning Joe” host Joe Scarborough alleged on Thursday.
Obama’s allies have pounced on Biden as the current president and his team strive to maintain his standing as the presumptive Democratic nominee.
Biden has been battling to hold support following his disastrous debate performance late last month.
According to Scarborough, Biden’s campaign and “Democratic officials” suspect Obama himself is behind the effort.
However, Scarborough said he believes Obama’s plan will backfire.
WATCH:
BREAKING: MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough:
“What’s going on behind the scenes is the Biden campaign and many Democratic officials do believe that Barack Obama is quietly working behind the scenes to orchestrate this.”
— Steve Guest (@SteveGuest) July 11, 2024
On Thursday morning, multiple media outlets have now reported on, and confirmed, Obama’s alleged efforts, including Politico.
Politico stated the former president was given a “heads-up” by actor George Clooney concerning his damaging New York Times guest essay calling on Biden to drop out.
“While Obama did not encourage or advise Clooney to say what he said, he also didn’t object to it,” the report said.
MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough went a step further, stating on “Morning Joe,” Biden’s favorite news show, that “Obama is quietly working behind the scenes to orchestrate this.”
Multiple media outlets have now reported that they have contacted Obama about he allegations but he refuses to respond.
According to Fox News, a source close to Obama declined to comment on the reports but pointed to the former president’s statements in support of Biden.
One was Obama’s statement in support of Biden’s disappointing showing in the first presidential debate last month.
The other was at the Los Angeles fundraiser that became the subject of Clooney’s op-ed.
However, as Clooney noted in his essay, the Hollywood star was also supportive of Biden during the fundraiser.
Yet, Clooney noted that Biden’s behavior was a cause for concern at the event and the president only confirmed those fears during the debate.
Obama has since remained quiet publicly as a number of his close allies and former staffers ramp up their calls for the president to step aside.
Those close allies of the former president include his ex-advisor, David Axelrod.
In addition, Jon Favreau, Jon Lovett, and Tommy Vietor, who were often referred to as the “Obama bros” during their tenure in the White House, dedicated the majority of their latest “Pod Save America” episode to ganging up on Biden and calling for him to step aside.
They cited Biden’s poor performance in the first presidential debate and in a subsequent interview with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos last week.
“I thought it was bad, and, at times, very hard to watch,” Vietor said, referencing Biden’s sit-down with Stephanopoulos.
The interview with Stephanopoulos came as part of an effort by the president to quell critics calling for him to exit the presidential race.
“In fairness to Biden, I don’t think that interview could have solved the political problem that stemmed from the debate,” he said.
Vietor added that the interview made him “more concerned” because Biden “struggled to speak in a clear, coherent way.”
Vietor argued Biden didn’t articulate a compelling second-term agenda that would sway swing voters to support him over President Donald Trump, and that his explanations for his recent poor performance, such as travel and sickness, didn’t fully answer for “how bad the debate was.”
Lovett agreed and said the interview “was a hard setting for him to succeed, even at his absolute best, because it’s hard to justify why it was more than a week after the debate, that it was so brief, and he was only doing one.”
“If you’re going to raise the stakes on one interview, it can’t be another example of you being hard to understand, not because he’s soft, not because he’s mumbling, but because his train of thought doesn’t make sense,” he said.
“The stakes are incredibly high.
“Trump is an incredible threat, but either he will prosecute that case, or someone else will, and right now, we get neither.”
Favreau said that although Biden’s interview was “more coherent than the debate,” he was “worried” Biden’s lack of urgency and message meant he might not be able to make up for the debate going forward.
He cited recent polling showing Biden trailing Trump in every key swing state.
“What are you going to do to win over voters who are undecided between Biden and Trump when you have that message with George Stephanopoulos?” he asked.
Vietor later said it “seems like a clear-cut choice that we’d have a better chance with someone else,” while Lovett argued Biden wasn’t “delivering the message effectively.”
In addition, Stephanopoulos was later caught on video asserting that Biden is not fit to “serve four more years.”
