Pulling a bit more on this thread of Biden’s leadership during the debt-ceiling negotiations . . . Right now, congressional Democrats feel like they don’t really have a president or a leader, and that Biden is more or less AWOL from the party’s messaging effort. And they’re all complaining to the Washington press.
The void left by the White House this week — Biden spoke very briefly before Monday’s meeting with McCarthy and made fleeting remarks Thursday — has frustrated Capitol Hill Democrats who believe Biden’s team is allowing Republicans to define the debt ceiling debate on their terms.
“It’s time to bring the president off the bench, or bring somebody off the bench. No one’s responding to anything. Kevin’s consistently on message,” said one House Democrat, who was granted anonymity to speak freely. “We have the Oval Office. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
House Democratic anxieties are flaring over President Joe Biden’s negotiations with Republicans to avert default.
Some Democrats fear his limited public statements on the debt ceiling amount to ceding the messaging war to Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., and his deputies, who have been ubiquitous in recent days in casting blame on the White House. Other Democrats say Biden is wrong to discredit the 14th Amendment option to tackle the debt limit unilaterally, as the GOP engages in what Democrats see as a hostage standoff.
Ultimately, their angst is about whom the public will blame if a deal can’t be reached, or if the terms of any agreement are draconian. Without a more aggressive effort to talk to the public, Democrats worry that voters will focus their anger on Biden — and them.
House Democratic lawmakers are voicing frustration over President Biden’s approach to negotiating a debt ceiling deal with Republicans, worrying that their priorities are not being championed aggressively enough and that Biden hasn’t more forcefully pushed back publicly against Republican demands. . . .
House Democrats across ideological factions are frustrated at what they say is a lack of communication by the White House at a time when they should be preparing to defend their party’s president, who has frequently commented on his willingness to find compromise in hopes of striking a deal. Democrats have publicly and privately said the president isn’t responding forcefully enough to Republicans’ framing of the negotiations, and that their lack of insight into the process could jeopardize Democrats’ ability to whip votes in support once a bipartisan deal eventually hits the House floor.
We also want to lay down a marker once again and tell you that the anger in the House Democratic Caucus right now is palpable. Many rank-and-file Democrats feel as if they’re going to be asked to vote for a package that is slanted toward Republican demands with little for them in return.
Biden isn’t keeping House Democrats in the loop, isn’t saying much in his public statements, no one knows what kind of concessions he’s willing to make, and, with seven days until the projected date of defaulting on the debt, this evening he’s off to Camp David for a long weekend. You can forgive Democrats for wondering if Biden is really there.
I’m reminded of this very revealing quote from an unnamed White House aide in June of last year:
At the center is a president still trying to calibrate himself to the office. The country is pulling itself apart, pandemic infections keep coming, inflation keeps rising, a new crisis on top of new crisis arrives daily and Biden can’t see a way to address that while also being the looser, happier, more sympathetic, lovingly Onion-parody inspiring, aviator-wearing, vanilla chip cone-licking guy — an image that was the core of why he got elected in the first place.
“He has to speak to very serious things,” explained one White House aide, “and you can’t do that getting ice cream.”
As I wrote back then, if Biden can only have a winning persona when the atmosphere around him is the breezy, carefree fun of an afternoon on summer vacation, he probably shouldn’t have pursued the job of commander in chief.