Why a President most voters say shouldn’t run faces no real party challenge
BY BRIAN BENNETT
The Brief
INSIDE
REMEMBERING HARRY BELAFONTE, ACTIVIST AND PERFORMER
HOW TO FIND YOUR NEW HOBBY
IGA SWIATEK MIGHT BE TENNIS’ NEXT BIG STAR
IN EARLY JANUARY, PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN called a Cabinet meeting in the West Wing of the White House. Over the holidays, a wave of flight cancellations by Southwest Airlines had left thousands of Americans stranded at airports for days. The face of the government response on cable news had been Biden’s Transportation Secretary and onetime rival for the Democratic nomination, Pete Buttigieg, who had been one of the Administration’s most visible talking heads for months. Multiple clips of Buttigieg holding his own against combative anchors had gone viral. When Biden saw Buttigieg, the President flashed his unnaturally white teeth.
“Hey, TV,” Biden tossed at Buttigieg, say two people familiar with the meeting. It was a targeted jibe. Officials in the room saw it as a good-natured reminder to Buttigieg that while it was his job to be out in front of a bad news cycle, he was representing Biden, not himself.
The subtle moment spoke volumes about how Biden has managed to clear the field for a re-election bid that many in his party never wanted. A year ago, the conventional wisdom was that Biden might run again, but that he would have to fend off serious challengers in a contested primary, including possibly figures from within his own Cabinet.
That thinking has completely fallen apart. Despite a recent poll showing most voters don’t want the oldest President in American history to run for another term, none of the party’s most credible candidates is taking any steps toward a run. The two most prominent Democrats vying for President thus far—Marianne Williamson and Robert F. Kennedy Jr.—are far from serious threats.
“You’re not going to challenge somebody that you can’t beat,” says a Biden adviser. Across the country, the Democratic Party’s biggest stars have conceded that point.
In some cases, the President brushed back would-be challengers after bringing them into his Administration, like Buttigieg and Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo. For others, like Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, he’s incorporated some of their pet initiatives into his own agenda. Many of Warren’s former advisers and staff now populate the senior ranks of the national Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and are in key spots running Biden’s trade policy. And Biden has echoed Sanders as he pressured pharmaceutical companies to swallow cuts to the prices Medic
