Abandon Schiff: Pelosi protégé latest to call for Biden to step aside

The blows keep coming. California congressman Adam Schiff, who was an impeachment manager during Donald Trump’s first Senate trial in 2020, is now targeting another president for destruction. He has now called upon Joe Biden to exit the presidential race, the twenty-third legislator to do so and definitely the most significant of the lot. Schiff, who is running for the Senate, was a protégé of former House speaker Nancy Pelosi.

For several weeks, Pelosi, who knows that a continued Biden candidacy would likely lead to the downfall of the Democratic party this November, has been waging a quiet but determined campaign to persuade Biden to surrender. Not surprisingly, the Pelosi camp is stoutly denying that it had anything to do with Schiff’s announcement. But that denial should be taken with several grains of salt, at the very least. Pelosi is a masterful operator who may no longer be the House speaker in name — that honorific belongs to Hakeem Jeffries — but she remains it in fact. No one else can wield the authority that she does to prompt Biden to bow to the inevitable.

In pressing Biden, Schiff was careful to observe that he was “one of the most consequential president’s in our country’s history” but also underscored the peril of his remaining in the presidential race. “While the choice to withdraw from the campaign is President Biden’s choice alone,” he said, “I believe it is time for him to pass the torch.” Just how robustly that torch continues to flicker is an open question.

In addition, ABC News reports this evening that Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer told Biden in a Saturday meeting that he should end his reelection campaign for the good of the country.

Not only is Biden’s inability to speak coherently turning him into an object of pity and derision, but his refusal to leave the race has also robbed his party of precious weeks to prepare for a new candidate.

Still, the odds that Biden will do the right thing are increasing. After declaring that only the Almighty could convince him to abandon the race, he announced today that a medical verdict that he is unfit would suffice. (The president was just diagnosed with Covid.) In his habitually circumlocutory fashion, Biden stated, “If I had some medical condition that emerged, if somebody, if doctors came to me and said, you got this problem and that problem.” Apart from Biden’s inner circle, it has become manifestly apparent to most Americans that Biden’s continued tenure is indeed problematic. The cold, hard truth is that he is incapable of running a real campaign, let alone serving a fresh term. A new poll has revealed that two-thirds of Democrats believe that it’s high time for Joe to go. A mere 37 percent believe he could defeat Trump. His continued presence at the top of the ticket is sparking mordant jokes about whether his candidacy represents the Titanic or the Lusitania.

Biden thought that he had weathered the storm, particularly after the attempted assassination of Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania. He was wrong. Schiff’s plangent call for him to depart will not be the last. As Democratic legislators, fearful for their careers, jettison Biden, the pressure will continue to mount. Schiff has prepared the stage for his ouster. When Pelosi enters the scene, it will serve as the final act of this tragic farce.