Joe and Jill Biden have, for the most part, been personae non grata within the Democratic Party ever since the former president’s disastrous debate performance in June 2024 against then-GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump
Mr. Biden was then summarily pushed to drop out of the presidential race in the aftermath, something he did a month later under immense pressure from top Democrats, including former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and then-Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), in what some political observers at the time described as a “soft coup” of sorts.
After Biden’s successor replacement, Vice President Kamala Harris, was trounced on Election Day, with Democrats also losing the Senate in spectacular fashion, the Bidens mostly faded from the scene for a short time – outside of Biden taking the time to pardon family members – to lick their wounds and regroup.
When they tried to return in March, with Joe Biden talking to DNC Chair Ken Martin behind the scenes to let him know he wanted to campaign and fundraise on behalf of Democrats again, Biden reportedly got the cold shoulder:
Former President Joe Biden has told some Democratic leaders he’ll raise funds, campaign and do anything else necessary for Democrats to recover lost ground as the Trump administration rolls back programs the party helped design, according to people close to him.[…]So far, Biden’s overture seems to have fallen flat. Democrats find themselves adrift, casting about for a compelling messenger.Whoever that is, it’s not Biden, many party activists and donors contend. He’s tethered to the 2024 defeat and, at 82, is a symbol more of the party’s past than its future, they argue.
Not long after that, the floodgates opened, with books being released and discussions about Biden’s decline by “reporters” who had previously tried to assure the American people that Biden was just fine and capable of leading the country in a second presidential term.
In the middle of all this, it was revealed that the Biden Inc. financial pipeline was drying up.
Fast forward a few months, and we’re learning that not much has changed, as even the funding well for a Biden library, which they tried to restart in late summer of 2025, remains dormant:
Former President Joseph R. Biden Jr. has raised only a small fraction of the money needed to construct a presidential library, leaving uncertainty about when a library might be built and its viability as a stand-alone project, according to public filings and interviews with his donors.
In filings with the Internal Revenue Service, Mr. Biden’s library foundation revealed that it had not received any new donations in 2024, the final year of his presidency. The foundation was instead seeded entirely with $4 million left over from his 2021 inauguration.
[…]
Still, Mr. Biden’s foundation told the I.R.S. this year that it expected to bring in just $11.3 million, total, by the end of 2027. That would be far below the pace set by other recent presidents, and far less than the $200 million that Mr. Biden’s aides say they want to raise eventually.
“Partly because of that poor fund-raising, discussions are underway about consolidating a potential Biden library with pre-existing Biden institutions at the University of Delaware,” the New York Times also reported.
Reactions on X were swift:
Democrat strategist Dan Turrentine, the national financial director for then-Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) and who also held a similar role at the DNC in the early 2000s, had this reaction:
Sounds about right.
– Stacey Matthews has also written under the pseudonym “Sister Toldjah” and can be reached via X. –
CLICK HERE FOR FULL VERSION OF THIS STORY