CNN cites Biden insiders as saying it would be a Hurricane 5 if Biden were to step down, so he has to stick around...for the party's sake. 

NEW from me: Democrats fear replacement scenarios as much as keeping Biden

“It would be a Category 5 hurricane,” said one top Democratic official. “People don’t understand the sheer destruction that would be unleashed.”https://t.co/fP69roL2lD

— Edward-Isaac Dovere (@IsaacDovere) June 30, 2024

The problem with that, of course, is that what's best for the party isn't always best for the country, as Chuck Todd said on Meet the Press' panel Sunday.

To the donor class ready to close the checkbooks, the warning from Team Biden was this. 

President Biden's campaign on Saturday night, in a fundraising appeal to supporters, said the president dropping out would only "lead to weeks of chaos" and leave the eventual replacement weakened ahead of a November faceoff with former President Trump. https://t.co/YPPJbZC3oS

— ABC News (@ABC) June 30, 2024

So does Joe stay or does Joe go? According to former Fox News anchor Bill O'Reilly, the decision has been made. 

🚨Here's a Biden update from https://t.co/rryWmyXe7C news headquarters. The decision has been made that the President will quit the campaign. Two reasons: Democrat internal polling says he cannot recover from the debate, and fundraising is drying up. (1/2) #JoeBiden

— Bill O'Reilly (@BillOReilly) June 30, 2024

Former Barack Obama senior strategist David Plouffe appeared on MSNBC with former Biden press secretary Jen Psaki, and gave the President a little softer kick. 

He didn't necessarily tell him to get out, but he also didn't paint a picture that shows much chance for success unless Joe Biden suddenly discovers Wilford Brimley and Don Ameche's swimming pool with the alien pods energizing the water. James Carville, Bill Clinton's political guru, is reported in the Atlantic by Ron Brownstein as saying, "I tried."

.@RonBrownstein: "When I reached the longtime Democratic strategist James Carville via text near the end of last night’s presidential debate, his despair virtually radiated through my phone.

'I tried, man, I tried,' Carville wrote to me." https://t.co/EFkhmGSVk4

— Jeffrey Goldberg (@JeffreyGoldberg) June 28, 2024

Biden, for his part, is indicating he's going nowhere, which may end up ironically being the most truthful thing he's said this entire political cycle. He gathered the family around him at Camp David over the weekend, and naturally brought Annie Liebowitz along to take some glossy photos, because that's how to show the American people he's not slipping away. As our friend David Burge, Iowahawkblog on X says, that's the kiss of death for candidates. 

Ah, the Annie Leibowitz photo shoot, the traditional death sentence for a political campaign https://t.co/y795hiVhgN

— David Burge (@iowahawkblog) June 30, 2024

Speaking of photos, Dr. Jill Dr. Biden, Ed.D graces the cover of Vogue this morning, exquisitely timed in the most Eva Peron fashion possible. 

Do you think this little number is going to let go of the reins of power without a bloodbath? pic.twitter.com/gnW7uY5AOe

— James Woods (@RealJamesWoods) June 28, 2024

Oops, sorry about that, grabbed the wrong picture. Of course, this is cover of Vogue.

Jill Biden is on the July cover of Vogue. Just dropped this AM.https://t.co/sIDNKmZ8EZ pic.twitter.com/FS8M4UrJl1

— Alex Thompson (@AlexThomp) July 1, 2024

So does the White House's communications shop run everything now through an AI algorithm set to search for "what's the most tone deaf media we can offer today?" It takes a sustained effort to be this bad, this cringy, this consistently over time. 

And speaking of a sustained effort to be cringy, that brings me to the back-up plan, Vice President Kamala Harris. Not to be starved of attention by the boss during the last 96 hours, she took part in a cameo for the BET awards, recording a bit with host Taraji P. Henson. 

Somehow, Facetiming from her iPhone at her desk in the office of the vice president isn't exactly working the streets, is it? And 'they not like us?' The fact that Harris is on the defense, trying to look and sound hip with African-Americans, desperate to shore up what has to be a greater hemorrhage than an Ebola outbreak, while Donald Trump is in Chesapeake speaking to tens of thousands of residents of the Commonwealth proclaiming Virginia is Trump country, it doesn't look too promising for the Democratic Party. 

While Kamala is mugging for an audience that should already be signed, sealed, and delivered for Biden-Harris, her husband, the second fella, Doug Emhoff, was at a debate watch party in Los Angeles with a lot of Hollywood big wigs. 

A debate watch party in Los Angeles on Thursday night happened to feature Harris’ husband Doug Emhoff, Pritzker, Whitmer and Beshear. There were other high-profile attendees – by a few answers in, Rob Reiner was screaming about losing and Jane Fonda had tears in her eyes, according to people in the room.

Even Barack Obama is choosing his words carefully. When asked about the debate by House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries at a fundraiser for House Democrats, he said Biden has “the values that reflect the best in America,” but politics is a “team sport,” with the president as “the captain.” He added that getting Jeffries to be speaker is “probably the most important thing we can do for the Biden reelection campaign as well.”

That had to be a little awkward, didn't it? 

And speaking of awkward, Team Biden released a brand new ad from Joe Biden, focusing on how important it is to protect democracy. it's a 36-second ad, including the White House logo taking up the final 4 seconds. Joe Biden had 32 seconds to speak. There were 9 jump cuts in 32 seconds. 

He literally couldn't get 10 seconds into an ad read without having to do a pickup and splicing together God only knows how many takes. Joe Biden can't walk, talk, think on his feet, and stumbles over the teleprompter when he's reading text. And that's just the mechanics of the job. When he did have his mental faculties, he still made rotten policy decisions. 

Will he stay or will he go? Two things will decide that in the next 10 days (three if you include God) - polling and money. If states Biden has to have in order to win are now lost, and if the money dries up, so does Joe Biden's chances of staying in place. On the polling front, here's news from our friend Josh Kraushaar at Jewish Insider on a call Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer had with Biden-Harris campaign chair Jen O'Malley Dillon. 

“Whitmer had phoned O’Malley Dillon with more of an unambiguous SOS: to relay that Michigan, in the wake of the debate, was no longer winnable for Biden.”

— Josh Kraushaar (@JoshKraushaar) July 1, 2024

There is no return to the White House for Joe Biden without Michigan. There just isn't. Then, there's this poll out of New Jersey.

📊 NEW JERSEY GE: @coefficientpoll

🟥 Trump: 41%
🟦 Biden: 40%
🟨 RFK/3rd Party: 7%
⬜ Undecided:13%
—
Senate
🟦 Kim: 39%
🟥 Bashaw: 33%
🟨 Menendez: 3%
⬜ Undecided: 25%

H2H Ballot -
🟦 Kim: 41%
🟥 Bashaw: 34%
⬜ Undecided: 25%

#237 (1.1/3.0) | June 26-27 | 810 LV… pic.twitter.com/X5CNraZXL4

— InteractivePolls (@IAPolls2022) June 28, 2024

Now let me state for the record that I will not believe Donald Trump can win New Jersey until I actually see the checkmark on the red image of Donald Trump on Election Night. What I am telling you is that if Donald Trump is leading, hell, if he's within margin of error, scratch that, if he's within single digits of Joe Biden in the Garden State, you can't make a case that Joe Biden lands Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Minnesota. 

Jon Tester is down six to Tim Sheehy in Montana's Senate race. I'm sure Bob Casey in Pennsylvania and Sherrod Brown in Ohio are afraid to even look at their numbers after the debate. Nate Silver noted this Leger national poll, taken both pre-debate and post-debate. 

Great job circling the wagons around Joe Biden, Democratic elected officials. Terrific work. A++. https://t.co/vKIIuOtFc6

— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) June 28, 2024

As for money, Team Biden knows that's one of the indicators that the stink of death is on their candidate - when the money dries up. They're trying to be proactive and claim that they got flooded immediately with cash right after the debate. Nate Silver has other thoughts. 

The White House, which has mostly been a remarkably tight ship, is starting to leak, and the donors are starting to revolt. I don't know if Biden will quit; that's up to him. But you don't need to be a weatherman to see which way the wind is blowing.

— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) June 30, 2024

The New York Times reports on the growing skittishness of Democratic donors. 

At a fund-raiser for House Democrats with Mr. Obama on Friday evening in New York, the overwhelming topics of discussion were Mr. Biden’s failure on the debate stage and how the party should respond. Along with Representative Hakeem Jeffries, the House minority leader, Mr. Obama told donors the debate had been a tough night, but he emphasized the urgent task of defeating Mr. Trump, two attendees said. 

Some attendees blamed Mr. Biden’s aides for the debacle, arguing they should have never agreed to the format or to such a late start time. Representative Gregory W. Meeks of New York said many donors urged the elected officials in attendance to pressure Mr. Biden to end his run for re-election. Mr. Meeks said he counseled donors to calm down.

The clock is ticking. If the Democrats are going to make a move, force him out and face whatever is coming to them with Kamala Harris, they've got about two weeks. After that, you're into the courts and the Torricelli option on steroids. But at this stage of the race, they may be committed to slidin' with Biden. 

In the interim, expect lots of reporting from inside the White House that is basically a variation of this.