As Adam Schiff urges President Biden to drop out, eyes turn to Nancy Pelosi

The News

California Rep. Adam Schiff’s call for President Biden to drop out on Wednesday signaled a return to the raging debate among Democrats over his nomination, which had been on pause since Saturday’s assassination attempt against Donald Trump.

“Pressure on Biden this weekend will be intense,” James Carville, the veteran Democratic strategist who has pushed for Biden to step down, told Semafor.

Schiff, an extremely high-profile Democrat on track to win a Senate seat in November, was especially notable because of his close ties to Nancy Pelosi, the former speaker who is seen as one of the few people in the party with the credibility and skill to force Biden’s hand.

CBS News reporter Robert Costa reported that a source told him Pelosi was not given a heads up on Schiff’s move.

Washington didn’t sound as convinced, to put it mildly.

“Him going all the way today is all her,” one skeptical senior Democratic House aide told Semafor.

Benjy’s view

What everyone is still waiting to see is how much the “drop Biden” effort is an organized movement with a true leader and how much of it is just disparate griping from individual members that ends up nowhere near critical mass. There are constant hints of the so-called “dam breaking,” but it’s yet to occur three weeks after the debate.

So far no one individual has assumed the mantle of visibly organizing the opposition to Biden. Pelosi is famous as a political tactician during crises that require careful coordination, which is a major reason her decision to publicly cast doubt on his nomination has been so closely scrutinized.

One juicy revelation in Molly Ball’s recent biography of Pelosi is that she had stage-managed a turn against the Iraq War in 2005 by her close friend and defense hawk, the late Rep. Jack Murtha, in order to give it the appearance of a one-man crusade without the left’s backing. As part of that process, she deliberately did not lend him visible support, even as she faced public pressure to do so. The party, which had been divided over the war, soon began to decisively shift against it.

The question now is whether we’re in a similar situation in which there’s a significant buildup of opposition to Biden under the surface that’s waiting for a signal to go public — directly, or indirectly — from someone like Pelosi. And if she’s not the one taking charge, will someone else step in to fill the role?

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, two other potentially decisive players, are at minimum buying more time for the party to discuss it. The two privately helped kill a push by the Biden campaign and DNC to officially confirm him as the nominee as soon as next week, a source told Semafor’s Joseph Zeballos-Roig on Wednesday.

While they’ve each offered generic support for Biden when asked, they mostly spent the last several weeks taking in member concerns about his candidacy with little indication as to their next move. Is this the prelude to telling Biden his standing with their members is irreparable, or to telling members that they’ve been given plenty of space to air their critiques and it’s time to move on?

Notable

• Politico’s Sarah Ferris reported on Tuesday that Pelosi was burning up the phones talking to members about Biden. One Democrat who spoke to her “ended the phone call with the distinct impression that Pelosi believed Biden should exit the presidential race.”

• Senate Democrats are circulating polling, obtained by Semafor, that shows Biden modestly dragging down their candidates in comparison to a hypothetical ticket with Kamala Harris or Gretchen Whitmer on top.