I don’t think it was pre-planned until the terrible debate performance.
Having said that, I definitely think they timed his dropping out to be after the GOP convention, and even after the Sunday political shows. That timing was just too perfect to be a coincidence. The GOP spent the entire convention focusing on the wrong target. Then the Sunday politics shows happened. Then immediately after that came the announcement he was dropping out, and almost at the same time he was endorsing Kamala.
I suspect he knew he was dropping out weeks before he announced it, mainly because the way everybody endorsed Kamala has been so seamless. The democrats are famous for looking disorganized, and having their fights in public. I strongly suspect they went to many key democrats and did whatever wheeling and dealing was needed for them to endorse Kamala when Biden dropped out, while making sure to keep it quiet.
Because it’s hard to keep secrets, it was probably a relatively small group of people who knew. But, I’d guess that at least 10 key democrats were informed early and brought on board.
I don’t think it was pre-planned until the terrible debate performance.
Having said that, I definitely think they timed his dropping out to be after the GOP convention, and even after the Sunday political shows. That timing was just too perfect to be a coincidence. The GOP spent the entire convention focusing on the wrong target. Then the Sunday politics shows happened. Then immediately after that came the announcement he was dropping out, and almost at the same time he was endorsing Kamala.
I suspect he knew he was dropping out weeks before he announced it, mainly because the way everybody endorsed Kamala has been so seamless. The democrats are famous for looking disorganized, and having their fights in public. I strongly suspect they went to many key democrats and did whatever wheeling and dealing was needed for them to endorse Kamala when Biden dropped out, while making sure to keep it quiet.
Because it’s hard to keep secrets, it was probably a relatively small group of people who knew. But, I’d guess that at least 10 key democrats were informed early and brought on board.