Rome

If it were Covid, which also had a mild impact, Joe Biden is now under siege. Beyond the isolation from the virus at his home in Delaware, the political isolation that his former boss Barack Obama and one of his longtime allies, Nancy Pelosi, have contributed to is weighing heavily. The former House Speaker — a party heavyweight who, after working behind the scenes to push prominent lawmakers like Adam Schiff to publicly call for his retirement — would have spoken directly to his friend Joe. According to CNN, he showed him the polls and told him point-blank, “Look, you can’t win.”

A similar message came from Democratic leaders in the House and Senate. In separate meetings, Hakeem Jeffries and Charles Schumer made clear to the president that while he remains the nominee, Democrats’ chances of winning Congress are also at risk. Jeffries met with Biden last Thursday at the White House, while Schumer spoke with the president in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, shortly before news of the assassination attempt on Donald Trump broke, The Washington Post reported. In both conversations, Democratic leaders expressed concerns to lawmakers and senators that Biden could jeopardize their reelection and the potential Democratic majority.

Then there is Barack Obama, who, according to the Washington Post (which did not deny it), has admitted to party friends that he is skeptical about Biden’s chances of winning. According to the Washington Post and other US media, Obama has been holding private talks for weeks with former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to push Biden to step down.

CNN also reported yesterday that Biden “seems to be receptive to his future” and that he has asked his advisers “if they think Kamala Harris can win the election.” The bitter cherry on the cake, Axios, wrote that it has heard from several Democratic lawmakers who claim that “Biden continues to resist in public, but is caving in to pressure in private, and could drop out of the race as soon as the weekend.”

But Biden shows no sign of giving up an inch. “I am the nominee and I expect to win,” is the message the president has conveyed to Democratic leaders in the House and Senate. And yesterday his men denied any possibility of a withdrawal: “We are not working on any possibility that Biden is not at the top of the ticket. He is and will remain the Democratic nominee,” Biden’s campaign deputy, Quinton Foulkes, said, repeating that “the president is still in the race.” At least for now.

Today, the Democratic National Committee’s Rules Committee must repeat the online vote for the formal inauguration, which will take place from August 1 to 7, and thus long before the Democratic Convention in Chicago, which begins on the 19th. The order to secure his nomination before the convention. What will happen in the next few hours is unknown. The Rules Committee may be shut down, and some delegates may refuse to vote. But there are many clouds on the horizon. Nothing is certain: Biden’s battle with Trump was supposed to be an open one with an open outcome, but it risks turning into Vietnam. And every day the Democrats spend in the quagmire makes things worse.

Alessandro Farrugia