Democrats quietly hatched contingency plans to prepare for former President Joe Biden dying in office or removing himself from consideration to be the party’s 2024 nominee more than a year before Election Day, a new book claims.
While the White House, party officials and media members like MSNBC host Joe Scarborough publicly testified to Biden’s fitness for office, aides to Vice President Kamala Harris privately “strategized around the possibility that Biden might die in office,” according to Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes’ upcoming book, “Fight: Inside the Wildest Battle for the White House,” which was previewed by the Guardian.
Officials at the Democratic National Committee engaged in similar prep work as well, according to Allen and Parnes.
“In hush-hush talks starting in 2023, [DNC] officials gamed out Biden-withdrawal scenarios, according to two people familiar with them,” the authors wrote.
“They wanted to make sure the party was ready for every possible circumstance: If Biden launched his campaign and then stepped aside before the primaries; if he won a bunch of primaries and then could not continue. If he secured enough delegates for winning the nomination but dropped out before winning a floor vote at the convention, and if he left a vacancy at the top of the ticket after taking the nomination.”