Biden skipped White House meeting after Trump debate for photoshoot, new book says

In the aftermath of the disastrous debate against Donald Trump that ultimately ended his political career, Joe Biden skipped a White House meeting with the congressional Progressive caucus in favor of a Camp David photoshoot with the fashion photographer Annie Leibovitz, a new book says.

“You need to cancel that,” Ron Klain, Biden’s former chief of staff and debate prep leader, told the president, as he advocated securing the endorsement of the group of powerful progressive politicians perhaps key to his remaining the Democratic nominee.

“You need to stay in Washington. You need to have an aggressive plan to fight and to rally the troops.”

As described by Klain to Chris Whipple, the author of an explosive new book on the 2024 campaign, Biden “seemed to relent. ‘OK,’ he said.”

“But the president’s resolve didn’t last,” the book continued. “That weekend, Biden and his family were at Camp David having their pictures taken” by Leibovitz.

The president did speak to the progressives by Zoom, Whipple writes, only to scold them over their stance on Israel and claim to have stronger progressive bona fides than they did.

Whipple’s book, Uncharted: How Trump Beat Biden, Harris, and the Odds in the Wildest Campaign in History, will be published next week. The Guardian obtained a copy.

Klain was White House chief of staff from 2021 to 2023. He became chief legal officer for Airbnb but returned to Biden’s side last June to prepare him to debate Trump.

Concern over the octogenarian president’s fitness for the job was a feature of Biden’s White House term. As reported by the Guardian, Klain told Whipple debate preparations left him alarmed by Biden’s physical and mental decline.

But Klain told Whipple: “This was about something other than his age. It was a struggle over power in our party.” According to Klain, Democratic donors were “tired” of Biden because of his ties to labor, and wanted a more business-oriented leader.

Such calls grew deafening after the debate, in which Biden performed with painful, halting confusion. According to Whipple, Klain called Biden the next day, 28 June, and said: “Look, we’re hemorrhaging badly. We need to get the progressive caucus to the White House this weekend. And you need to agree with them on an agenda for a second term, and they will endorse you. So you can walk out there with one hundred members of Congress saying, ‘You should stay in the race.’

“Biden wasn’t convinced: ‘Well, I’m supposed to go to Camp David this weekend for a photo shoot with my family.’”

Klain offered his “blunt” advice and Biden seemed to back down, Whipple writes. But the president left Washington anyway, for a stay with family members who were widely reported to be urging him not to drop out of the race.

“Klain was angry,” Whipple reports. “He called [Jeff] Zients, his successor as White House chief of staff. The president needed to rally the progressives ASAP, Klain told him. But Zients didn’t share his alarm. ‘Look, we’ve got a plan,’ he told Klain. ‘We’ve got a schedule. We’re going to stick to the schedule.’”

Zients and his team had been trying to rally support for Biden from Democrats in Congress but Klain “felt more drastic action was needed”. A Zoom call was set up with the progressives. It proved a “fiasco”, with Biden giving members of Congress led by Pramila Jayapal of Washington state “a scolding”, saying: “All you guys want to talk about is Gaza … What would you have me do?” and “I was a progressive before some of you guys were even in Congress.”

Jayapal called Klain. Klain called Zients. Zients passed blame to another Biden aide, Steve Ricchetti, “the progressives’ least favorite White House official”. Klain told Zients: “Jeff, this is life or death for this presidency this weekend.” Zients pushed back. Klain was convinced Biden’s aides did not have “a strategy to save his presidency”.

The battle to force Biden out continued. On 21 July, the president bowed to pressure and quit. Klain told Zients: “Jeff, that’s too bad. I think that’s a mistake. I think this was an avoidable tragedy.”

Biden’s vice-president, Kamala Harris, fought off attempts to deny her the nomination, then fought a 100-day campaign that ended in defeat by Trump.

Despite his first-hand experience of Biden’s struggles, and his failure to corral the president into doing simple political legwork instead of attending a glitzy photoshoot, Klain still thought Biden could have won a second term.

In August, he told CNN the president was “clearly up to the job. He’s doing it every day. He’s doing it successfully.”

He also said Biden had “done well” in debate preparation.