WASHINGTON (Diya TV) — In their new book, “Fight: Inside the Wildest Battle for the White House,” authors Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes expose that close advisors to President Joe Biden deliberately dissuaded Democratic party donors from backing Vice President Kamala Harris as his likely replacement in the 2024 election cycle.
The authors say that Biden’s staff cautioned donors that if the president were to drop out of the race because of questions about his age and health, the party would inevitably choose Harris—a decision they considered a “mistake.” One donor said he received messages from Biden’s staff that were “aggressively saying that we would wind up with the vice-president and that would be a mistake.
Despite these internal signals, Biden’s flagging performance, particularly in a debate against Donald Trump in June 2024, sharpened debate regarding whether he was a viable candidate. Backroom discussions between Democratic leaders regarding whether Biden might step aside had begun, according to reports as early as 2023, showing long-standing party anxieties.
The climax of all this occurred when Biden withdrew from the race on July 21, 2024. Harris went on to clinch the Democratic nomination, after preliminary hesitations from key leaders such as former President Barack Obama and former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi. The two came out in her support later on, with Pelosi claiming “immense pride” at doing so.
