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Former senior advisor to former President Joe Biden, Mike Donilon, criticized the Democratic Party on Tuesday for forcing Biden out of his 2024 re-election campaign.
Donilon blasted the decision to replace Biden, calling it “undemocratic” and a “betrayal” that cost the Democratic Party the presidency.
“I thought what happened in the party, I thought it was disloyal. I thought it was an act of betrayal against the president. I thought it was undemocratic because it didn’t respect the will of Democratic primary voters,” he said.
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Donilon made the remarks while speaking as a guest panelist at a USC Center for the Political Future conference this week.
The event’s host, CNN anchor Elex Michaelson, asked the former Biden aide for his perspective on Biden’s decision to withdraw from the race. Donilon responded by criticizing those who advised the president to step away.
“I thought the Democratic Party lost its mind. That’s what I thought,” he said.
Multiple Democratic leaders — including Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. — reportedly called on Biden to step down from his re-election campaign following his disastrous debate performance against President Donald Trump in June 2024.
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Donilon said it was the wrong move to push Biden out, saying, “I thought that Joe Biden was the best candidate. I thought he was the most likely person to be elected president. I thought he would be the best president.”
He noted that the party dropped Biden even though he was still polling within three points of Trump — within the margin of error. Donilon claimed that was the first time in U.S. history a nominee was replaced despite being that close in the polls.
Donilon added that “there was a perception that he couldn’t do the job” — a perception the ex-advisor disputed, saying, “No one can point to a moment in the Biden presidency when he failed to do his job as president.”
He also argued that Biden should have stayed in the race because he was the only candidate who had ever beaten Trump.
“So look, my view was, look, there have been three people who’ve run against Donald Trump — Joe Biden’s the only person who ever beat him.”
The Washington Post reported in December 2024 that Biden told allies at the time that he still believed he could have beaten Trump if he had continued running.
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During the conference, Donilon also criticized the idea of starting a Democratic campaign from scratch the summer before the 2024 election.
“And I thought it was politically stupid, because I think the idea that you can create a campaign in the middle of a summer, a few weeks before a convention and run a nominee, was not a smart decision,” he said, though he clarified that he thought Harris ran “a really good race.”
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