When is a podcast episode more than just a podcast episode? When it inspires a panic among some on the left because it hit too close to home.
That was the case with the 25-minute episode of the New York Times “Ezra Klein Show” last week, when host Ezra Klein delivered a rare guest-free monologue/rant aimed at convincing Democrats it’s time to push President Joe Biden to the side and bring on a new candidate for 2024.
“I think Biden, as painful as this is, should find his way to stepping down,” said Klein. “The party should help him find his way to … being the thing he said he would be in 2020, the bridge to the next generation of Democrats.”
Then the pushback ensued. “Ezra Klein is completely wrong,” wrote TPM founder Josh Marshall. MSNBC rushed up a column by Jennifer Palmieri countering it. Joan Walsh over at The Nation asked “Are Democrats over that Ezra Klein piece yet?”
It should be noted that this allegedly controversial opinion puts Klein squarely with the vast majority of Americans, with upwards of 80 percent now saying Biden is too old to be president again, including most Democrats.
So Klein’s verbal salvo may have hit close to home for some on the left, but it represents a clarifying moment. Because as of now the consensus establishment on the left is behind Biden staying in the race. He’s expected to deliver a “reset moment,” according to Axios, at next month’s State of the Union. But the rumblings are getting louder.
And if the party has moved on from Biden — and really starts to make plans for a replacement, or at least begins positioning the chess pieces to push Biden to the side — the American public will be able to watch it happen. The corporate media apparatus will work in conjunction with the party elites. And we know this, because we’ve seen it happen before — and only four years ago.
In my book, “Uncovered: How the Media Got Cozy with Power, Abandoned Its Principles, and Lost the People” (out in paperback this week), I lay out how the Democratic party machine worked with forces within the left-leaning media to torpedo Bernie Sanders’s primary campaign in 2020. Sanders finished a close second in Iowa, crushed the field in New Hampshire (where Biden finished a distant fourth), then took home a giant victory in the Nevada caucus. He was cruising to the nomination — or so it seemed.
Remember the way the party galvanized behind Biden before Super Tuesday, with Pete Buttigieg and Amy Klobuchar suddenly abandoning their own runs and endorsing Biden, in order to, as the New York Times put it explicitly, “slow Sanders”?
That political element was only part of the story — the Acela Media played their role too. Biden wasn’t their first choice — Beto O’Rourke got the Vanity Fair cover, they tried to make Kamala Harris and Elizabeth Warren happen. But when it came time to face the reality that it was the anti-establishment progressive Sanders or Biden, they got in line. Joy Reid on MSNBC said after the Sanders Nevada victory that “Democrats need to sober up and figure out what the hell they are going to do about it!” (In fact, Sanders’s campaign manager actually told Vanity Fair that Fox News was “more fair than MSNBC” to them.)
And it wasn’t just MSNBC — whether ideological or strategic, with forces on the left believing Sanders couldn’t beat Trump in the general, it was all-out war against Bernie and his supporters. And it worked. Biden won big on Super Tuesday, and coasted to victory.
It’s worth pointing out this corollary doesn’t work on the right with the right-leaning media, because if it did, Trump would have lost the nomination in 2016 and again in 2024. But on the left, the DNC/corporate-media partnership holds real sway.
Which brings us back to Biden and 2024. We’re starting to see a drip-drip-drip of news reports about sidelining Biden. ABC ran a piece last week noting “Biden isn’t leaving the 2024 race,” but then continuing to ask “but how would Democrats pick a nominee if he did?” (Just asking questions!) “Democrats Might Need a Plan B. Here’s What It Looks Like,” published Politico.
My favorite scenario was laid out by NewsNation’s Chris Stirewalt on “The Megyn Kelly Show” last year, where Biden steps down after the convention during the small three-week window that allows the DNC to literally pick the replacement and get that name on the ballot without that person having to deal with campaigning or even convention delegates.
But however it’s done, we’ll know whether it’s happening at all because the seeds will be planted in the press. A discerning American public will be able to witness the machinations first-hand, while watching cable news, or reading your preferred media outlet, or wading through the innuendo-filled social media posts of journalists.
Watch for leaks about what Biden is really like behind-the-scenes at the White House. Or maybe a damaging new Hunter Biden investigation. Or maybe just a lengthy focus on the worst of Biden’s latest poll numbers — particularly on the issue of age and competence.
And keep an eye out for more podcasts like Ezra Klein’s, from media members with power. And if the reaction to them from others on their “team” become more and more muted, you know the marching orders have been called in.
Steve Krakauer, a NewsNation contributor, is the author of “Uncovered: How the Media Got Cozy with Power, Abandoned Its Principles, and Lost the People” and editor and host of the Fourth Watch newsletter and podcast.