'This Will Not Pass' book: Obama "jealous" of Biden's first year, Sinema thinks cleavage helps against "uptight" GOP, Graham groveled to Trump unknowingly in front of reporters, Senior Democrats really hate "the Squad"

[SaysWho?]

Tensions between Biden and Barack- POLITICO

WWW.POLITICO.COM

 

This Will Not Pass review: Trump-Biden blockbuster is dire reading for Democrats | Books | The Guardian

WWW.THEGUARDIAN.COM

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Jonathan Martin and Alexander Burns have made waves with tapes of Kevin McCarthy and other Republicans – but the president’s party has more to fear from what they reveal

 

In Burns and Martin’s pages, Trump attributes McCarthy’s cravenness to an “inferiority complex”. The would-be speaker’s spinelessness and obsequiousness are recurring themes, along with the Democrats’ political vertigo.

 

I wouldn't read too much into the jealously part (there's not a rift best I can tell), but it was not lost on Obama that early in Biden's presidency and before he trimmed his agenda, there was an idea of Biden trying to be more transformational in the vein of FDR/LBJ than Obama:

 

Quote

Biden remarked to an adviser: “I am confident that Barack is not happy with the coverage of this administration as more transformative than his.”

 

Speaker NANCY PELOSI (D-Calif.), who was in regular communication with the 44th president, echoed that assessment. “Obama is jealous of Biden,” she told a friend.

 

Quote

Obama was defensive of the unflattering comparisons between his administration and Biden’s. “The former president felt [Biden aides and congressional Democrats like Senate Majority Leader CHUCK SCHUMER (D-N.Y.)] were unfairly disparaging his record,” the authors write. “Obama did not think he and his team had been played for fools by Republican senators, nor did he think the stimulus law he negotiated was such an obvious failure. You know, he told one former administration official, it was a different world in 2009.”

 

Obama’s early frustrations were ultimately a snapshot in time, underscoring how much the narrative around Biden’s presidency has changed over the past year. Since those early comparisons to FDR and LBJ, Biden trimmed his legislative ambitions down dramatically amid congressional gridlock and sagging approval ratings. During his State of the Union address in March, he focused on his “Unity Agenda” with proposals that could potentially attract bipartisan support.

 

Graham grovels:

 

Quote

During the authors’ interview with Trump, Graham called the former president. After initially declining to pick up, Trump answered. “Hello, Lindsey.” He then placed Graham on speaker, without letting him know reporters were seated nearby.

 

Groveling began instantly. Graham praised the power of Trump’s endorsements and the potency of his golf game. Stormy Daniels would not have been impressed. The senator, Burns and Martin write, sounded like “nothing more than an actor in a diet-fad commercial who tells his credulous viewer that he had been skeptical of the glorious product – until he tried it”.

 

Sinema knows she's attractive:

 

Quote

In addition to helping block Biden’s domestic agenda, Sinema has a knack for performative behavior and close ties to Republicans.

 

Like Sarah Palin, she is fond of her own physique. The senator “boasted knowingly to colleagues and aides that her cleavage had an extraordinary persuasive effect on the uptight men of the GOP”.

 

And what some high up think of the progressive members of Congress:

 

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Martin and Burns quote Steve Ricchetti, a Biden counselor: “The problem with the left … is that they don’t understand that they lost.”

 

Cedric Richmond, a senior Biden adviser and former dean of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC), is less diplomatic. He describes the squad as “fucking idiots”. Richmond also takes exception to AOC pushing back at the vice-president, Kamala Harris, for telling undocumented migrants “do not come.”

 

“AOC’s hit on Kamala was despicable,” Richmond says. “What it did for me is show a clear misunderstanding of what’s going on in the world.”

 

Meanwhile, Cori Bush, a Squad member, has picked a fight with the CBC and led the charge against domestic terror legislation.

 

[CayceG]

It's too early this morning for me to give any thought to this, but all of these snippets sound like a hopped up parody of what these people are actually like. 

 

 

Everything is so stupid. 

[skillzdadirecta]

Obama is jealous of BIden's first year? Really??? Biden may go down as our generation's Jimmy Carter. I don't think there's much to be jealous of... Pity maybe. Biden has had a ROUGH first year.

[Guest]

10 minutes ago, skillzdadirecta said:

Obama is jealous of BIden's first year? Really??? Biden may go down as our generation's Jimmy Carter. I don't think there's much to be jealous of... Pity maybe. Biden has had a ROUGH first year.

it seems from the quotes more accurate to say Obama was possibly jealous of the media coverage Biden received during the earlier months of his first year when Covid concerns plummeted after the vaccines became widely available, and there was excitement about the possibility of major economic programs passing. There was a brief moment where people were indeed writing articles about Biden as an FDR like figure in American presidential history.

 

Then delta, omicron, and two Dem senators came along and pretty well put an end to all of that. May have been fool’s gold regardless.

[finaljedi]

Of course they hate "the squad", senior Democrat leadership has no plans at all for the future, just holding on to what they have now.

[b_m_b_m_b_m]

2 hours ago, finaljedi said:

Of course they hate "the squad", senior Democrat leadership has no plans at all for the future, just holding on to what they have now.

Kings and queens of the ashes

[unogueen]

2 hours ago, finaljedi said:

Of course they hate "the squad", senior Democrat leadership has no plans at all for the future, just holding on to what they have now.

Can you blame them? They're still young, have natural teeth...

[SaysWho?]

9 hours ago, skillzdadirecta said:

Obama is jealous of BIden's first year? Really??? Biden may go down as our generation's Jimmy Carter. I don't think there's much to be jealous of... Pity maybe. Biden has had a ROUGH first year.

 

9 hours ago, sblfilms said:

it seems from the quotes more accurate to say Obama was possibly jealous of the media coverage Biden received during the earlier months of his first year when Covid concerns plummeted after the vaccines became widely available, and there was excitement about the possibility of major economic programs passing. There was a brief moment where people were indeed writing articles about Biden as an FDR like figure in American presidential history.

 

Then delta, omicron, and two Dem senators came along and pretty well put an end to all of that. May have been fool’s gold regardless.

 

Ya, he wasn't jealous of Biden's situation at the end of Year 1, but when he got a $1.9 trillion COVID relief signed and he was making deals on infrastructure to move in conjunction with a massive reconciliation bill and columnists were making comparisons to FDR/LBJ, it did look like he might well get a lot of good done in year 1 that would be historic.

 

And he did imo (can't stress how Obama couldn't get people to pass a slimmed down version of a slim infrastructure package with the crop of Republicans he was dealt, not to mention a much much grander stimulus this time versus 2009), but when the expectation is for long-lasting programs like paid leave and universal pre-k that will be transformative and they don't happen (and it does seem as if he tried really hard to get it done and suffered plenty politically for the fallout), the disappointment is grander. I don't fault him for that as communication with Schumer/Manchin seemed to be more at fault based on what I've read of the behind the scenes, but he could have been LBJ had BBB passed.