This is an adapted excerpt from MSNBC’s special coverage on July 21.
Through the weekend, there were an awful lot of questions that were going back and forth from people in the president’s tightest circle, and one of the questions that kept being asked was whether Joe Biden was going to endorse Kamala Harris or not. And the question didn’t revolve around whether he wanted to or not, but whether people in her camp thought it would be better for her to fight for it, win it on her own, and not be seen as somebody who was tapped by President Biden and so, in her own way, have a fresh start going into the campaign.
So the timing seems to be about as good as it could have been to end what has just been one of the craziest two or three weeks in American politics in quite some time.
So when I heard that he did come out and endorse Kamala Harris, I think a lot of Democrats that were going back and forth this weekend on this issue felt an awful lot of relief, because Democrats obviously believe Biden did a great job — he has a great record, along with Kamala Harris. And as he said, it’s absolutely necessary for the Democratic Party, if they want to defeat Donald Trump, to unite as one. And so his statement seems to hit all the right notes and comes at a good time.
There was a fear that this might drag on another week or two — and in that case, you would have massive Democratic defections every day. So the timing seems to be about as good as it could have been to end what has just been one of the craziest two or three weeks in American politics in quite some time.
The morning after the debate, I got on and said that the president needed to ask whether he was capable of doing this and take a little bit of time to figure it out. I think he took a little more time than I was expecting. But after saying that, I heard from people that were extraordinarily close to him, people who work for him, actually calling me up and saying, “President Biden needs space. If Democrats and people in the media say the sort of things that you said today and he’s not given that space, he’s going to be far more likely to get into a corner and stay in the race.”
So I think so much of what Biden’s inner circle did over the last couple of weeks was to provide him that space. And it’s what Nancy Pelosi was trying to do — it’s why you didn’t see massive defections of 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 people a day, even though it was starting to get bad. I think the whole idea was give him the space to make this decision. He made the decision.
And I will say, the most telling thing about how positive this may be for the Democratic Party is the Republican response.
And I will say, the most telling thing about how positive this may be for the Democratic Party is the Republican response. Earlier this morning, Newt Gingrich was was going on Twitter talking about how this is a violation of democracy, how it’s shocking and stunning that they’re delegitimizing the votes of 14.5 million Democrats. You also have House Speaker Mike Johnson going around saying that he’s going to do everything he can to try to nullify this, despite the fact Democrats haven’t even had their convention yet. So he’s standing on no ground at all.
I’ve also had a good bit of reporting from deep inside the Trump camp that this is the one thing that Donald Trump feared. He has always considered himself to be the ultimate disrupter. And for the first time — not just in his political life, but the first time in his media life, in his professional life — the disruption is on the other side. People are not having to respond to the shocking turn of events from him for once.
Trump and his campaign team are going to have to respond to this shocking turn of events — and they’re not happy about it at all. And I think that’s why you’re seeing a lot of Trump’s acolytes in politics and the media coming out and bitterly complaining about this.