Democrats push tensions below the surface as the party sprints to beat Trump
CHICAGO — Despite the ebullient feel of the Democratic convention, the tensions coursing through the party ever since President Joe Biden dropped his re-election bid are bursting into public view.
Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi stood in the front row of the convention waving a "We ?? Joe" sign as he took the stage, hours after telling reporters Monday that she wasn’t apologizing for her role in pushing him out.
"I just wanted to win this election," she said, adding that if Biden loyalists are unhappy, “I’m sorry for them, but the country is very happy."
As Democrats meet in Chicago this week to celebrate Kamala Harris, whose candidacy is just four weeks old, they’ve worked to suppress any dissension over the dramatic events preceding Biden’s abrupt departure from the race. Campaign officials are delivering a public message that Democrats have coalesced behind Harris and are determined to defeat Trump.
Yet differences over Biden’s withdrawal from the race are bubbling up within the party, raising questions about whether Democrats can sustain a cohesive front if she stumbles or her poll numbers start to sink.
Behind Democratic unity is an aching wish to defeat Donald Trump, who the party sees as the most unpalatable opponent the GOP has put forward in living memory, strategists said.
But internal fissures are hard to miss.
Biden took a detour from the prepared remarks in his convention speech to say he “wasn’t angry with all those people who said I should step down” — pulling the issue out into the open and raising a new set of questions. If not angry, was he offended? Did he feel betrayed?
When reporters asked him about his mindset later Monday night as he left Chicago, Biden made the telling admission that he and Pelosi haven’t spoken. That he hasn’t said a word to Pelosi, a power broker whom he’s known for half a century, is itself a sign that some frostiness persists.
Plenty of Biden loyalists are bitter on his behalf, believing he was unfairly forced out of the race. Even first lady Jill Biden has privately voiced “dismay” that more Democrats did not stick by her husband when he faced pressure to end his campaign following a dismal debate performance in June.
One Biden adviser said that political aides have been directed to support Harris’s presidential bid in any way she needs. The guidance coming from the top is that it’s not the time to agonize over Biden’s fate, this person said.
“The biggest defining force in modern Democratic politics is opposition to Trump,” the adviser added. “It overrides so much. He is so hostile to what we believe in, that it just transcends everything.”
Former Sen. Ted Kaufman, of Delaware, a longtime friend and former Senate chief of staff to Biden, said in an interview: “The major focus of just about everybody here [at the convention] is how do we make Harris president and Tim Walz vice president. What super-charges this is the existential threat of a Trump presidency.”
Echoing Kaufman, White House Communications Director Ben LaBolt, speaking in his personal capacity, said "President Biden is 100 percent focused on the task ahead: continuing to deliver everything he can for hardworking Americans over the next five months and ensuring that his governing partner, Vice President Harris, is elected to secure that progress."
LaBolt added that Biden is "grateful for the support President Obama lended at a series of events when he was a candidate this cycle and for their partnership which resulted in a massive expansion of health care access, held Wall Street accountable, and led the nation out of a financial crisis. Democrats are nothing but unified and determined heading into November to defeat the threat to democracy and freedom posed by Donald Trump.”
Under the best of circumstances, the Democratic Party struggles to keep from coming unglued. A collection of interest groups and ideological factions, the party is so prone to infighting that the phrase “Democrats in disarray” has become a familiar trope of Washington news coverage.
Biden’s departure set off a chain of events that had the potential to spark chaos and strain the party to the breaking point. At a minimum, the Harris-for-Biden switch posed the biggest test of party unity since President Lyndon Johnson abandoned his re-election bid amid the Vietnam War in 1968. (Johnson’s vice president, Hubert Humphrey, lost to Richard Nixon that year.)
A pin that some Democrats are wearing at the convention depicts Pelosi as "The Godmother," marionette strings and all. Whether meant as a compliment or an insult, the image speaks to the "make- him-an-offer-he-can't refuse" tactics used to dump Biden in favor of Harris.
“I’ve talked to 100 Biden people — House members, senators and fundraisers — who think he got totally screwed,” said one Biden fundraiser, speaking on condition of anonymity. “It was unfair, unwise and unjust. And those people who did it will not have this moment in history reflect well on their own behavior.”
For Biden, loyalty extends both ways. At his downtown hotel on Monday, he surprised some of the several dozen supporters who flew on a charter plane from his home state of Delaware to attend his speech.
Biden “worked the room like he was still running for office,” joked the Rev. Christopher Bullock, the pastor of Canaan Baptist Church in New Castle.
Now it’s Harris’ job to make sure any lingering ill will won’t subvert her candidacy. She has built a triad of Biden, Harris and Barack Obama campaign operatives. Some have had rivalrous dealings over the years, and they now need to pull together if they're to keep Trump out of the White House.
"Our campaign is united around Vice President Harris and Governor Walz and their agenda to protect Americans’ freedoms, strengthen the economic security for the middle class, and build a stronger future together," said James Singer, a Harris campaign spokesman.
Misgivings go back years in some cases. Mike Donilon, a longtime Biden adviser, left the campaign after his boss pulled out of the race, but Harris has kept in top positions Jennifer O’Malley Dillon and Julie Chavez Rodriguez. O'Malley Dillon worked in Obama's past campaigns; Chavez Rodriguez worked in the Obama White House.
Pelosi, in a recent interview with the New Yorker, said, “I’ve never been that impressed with his [Biden’s] political operation,” though she did not specify whom she meant.
Another potential source of friction is Harris’ decision to bring in a few former Obama campaign aides, including David Plouffe, who ran Obama’s 2008 campaign and also worked in his White House when Biden was vice president.
Plouffe is forever connected with Obama — a reality that may not endear him to some Biden loyalists. Biden’s son Hunter wrote in his memoir that he “didn’t hang around the [Obama] White House much; I didn’t want to be in the position of walking into a barbecue on a Sunday with the president and the White House staff after reading about someone throwing my dad under the bus.” He didn't specify the staff members he distrusted.
Adding Obama alumni to Harris’s campaign team amounted to a “gut punch” to Biden, one person familiar with the matter said in an interview.
Politico reported earlier this month that O’Malley Dillon spoke to Harris about additions to the campaign team, saying she wanted to know if Plouffe and others' arrival would erode her authority. O’Malley Dillon did not respond to a request for comment.
A Harris aide, though, said in an interview Tuesday that O'Malley Dillon's phone call was meant to "sync up with the vice president with how she would continue to lead the campaign" and that she did not voice any concerns about Plouffe possibly diluting her authority.
O'Malley Dillon and Plouffe "have been friends and colleagues for years. They are excited to be working together," the aide said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
For Harris, the compressed calendar may work to her advantage. There is little time for anyone bent on defeating Trump to dwell on past enmities, some Democrats said.
“The campaign is energized and I see a team that is highly motivated and pulling in the right direction,” said Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., Biden’s closest congressional ally. “There are some of the most talented folks in Democratic politics who have worked for Biden and Obama and are now part of Team Harris-Walz. We only have about 80 days left, so I’m very optimistic the campaign can sustain its unity and energy.”
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com