“The Democratic base is looking for someone newer, fresher,” said a close friend of the president.
During a recent meeting involving Trump, Vice President Mike Pence and senior officials from the White House Office of Political Affairs, a discussion ensued about whether the president should be nervous about Biden entering the 2020 fray, a White House official told POLITICO. Several people in the room told Trump he shouldn’t be “overly nervous” as long as Biden is “pulled to the left” in the primary, according to the official.
Trump advisers, noting the way Biden recently backpedaled after publicly calling Vice President Mike Pence a “decent guy,” told the president the incident was a perfect example of the verbal tightrope Biden will have to walk if he declares his candidacy. When fellow Democrats and the party’s progressive base accused Biden of legitimizing “America’s most anti-LGBT elected leader,” as former New York gubernatorial candidate Cynthia Nixon wrote in a viral tweet, Biden quickly said he was “making a point in a foreign policy context … but there is nothing decent about being anti-LGBTQ rights.”
Join the conversation as a VIP Member