BLUE ‘COUP’ VS. JOE
Dem bigs’ pleas before dropout
Operatives at the highest levels of the Democratic Party threatened Joe Biden with forcibly removing him from office unless he stepped down, sources told The Post.
The well-orchestrated “palace coup” to stop the faltering 81-yearold president seeking re-election has been in place for weeks, but stubborn Biden fought against it every step of the way, a source close to the Biden family told The Post Monday.
The insider also made clear the anger, paranoia and frustration Biden displayed as the party elite circled around him and piled on the pressure.
Part of the “elaborate” strategy to remove Biden from the race — as he announced in a shock letter posted on X Sunday — was allowing him to debate Republican candidate Donald Trump last month on live TV in Atlanta.
During his disastrous 90-minute debate, Biden appeared confused, slack-jawed and froze at one point.
“That debate was a setup to convince Democrats that he couldn’t run for president,” a source close to the Biden family told The Post Monday.
As calls for him to bow out mounted, Biden insisted he would continue, but party bigwigs threatened to invoke the 25th Amendment to the US Constitution, which allows the vice president and members of the Cabinet to declare a president unfit to serve and force them to step down.
‘Good cop, bad cop’
Although the identities of the party bigwigs pressuring Biden have not been revealed, separate sources said Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) had played “good cop, bad cop’’ with him.
Schumer, the Democratic Senate majority leader, paid Biden a rare visit eight days before the president sensationally exited the race, the second source told The Post.
“Schumer delivered a personal appeal that focused on three points: the Biden legacy, the future of the country and the impact on Congress. He urged him to think about the Supreme Court,” the source said.
Pelosi had a more blunt approach during a contentious earlier phone call about polling after the dismal June 27 debate, where she all but threatened to rake Biden over the
coals if he didn’t drop his campaign, according to a CNN report.
Schumer literally hugged Biden as he told him to give up the fight, while Pelosi warned “they could do this the easy way or the hard way,” according to Politico.
The White House and representatives from the Democratic National Committee did not respond to The Post’s requests for comment.
The final phase of Biden’s decision-making occurred among an extremely small circle of people including longtime aides such as Steve Ricchetti, chief strategist and speechwriter Mike Donilon and Anthony Bernal, First Lady Jill Biden’s top adviser.
First Son Hunter Biden also suddenly became more involved in his father’s day-to-day business and insisted upon attending every official and unofficial meeting in the run-up to his stepping down, the first insider said.
“Hunter felt [President Biden] was being set up, and he was very concerned about his father,” the source said. “These people, these officials were not on Joe’s side.”
Biden’s own staff did not have any forewarning about the bombshell decision to pull out of the race, which was known since at least Tuesday, the source said.
Many were also shocked by the letter posted to Biden’s X account Sunday, as it was typed on his private letterhead rather than White House notepaper and signed electronically.
“Everyone was totally shocked,” the source said.