As Biden Fights to Stay, a Loyalist's Name Rises

President Biden's bid to prove he should not withdraw from the 2024 race gets a major test Friday night when his interview with George Stephanopoulos airs on ABC. Simply put, it's "the biggest interview of Joe Biden's life," as laid out by the Politico Playbook. Even if the president nails it, however, the talk of VP Kamala Harris replacing him as the nominee is in full throttle.

• On Harris: A "widening group of leading party officials" already has moved beyond the question of whether Harris should replace Biden to who her running mate should be, reports CNN. For the record, the story mentions North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper and Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear as in the top tier, with others including Govs. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania, JB Pritzker of Illinois, and Tim Walz of Minnesota.

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• The shift: At New York magazine, Gabriel Debenedetti writes that "among Harris's longtime donors, supportive professional Democrats, and friends, there is a growing sense of nervous anticipation alongside a hardening belief that her elevation to the top of the ticket is increasingly probable." The story tracks how this shift occurred in the days after the debate. Harris herself and her closest aides have been careful to stay mum, even in an off-the-record sense, offering not "even any teeny, implicit hint of receptiveness."
• Trump: Axios (which previously laid out why Harris would be the near-certain replacement to Biden should he withdraw) looks ahead to how Donald Trump would go after her. "He'd argue Harris is too liberal, too hostile to business and secure borders, and too inexperienced, weak and phony to be president," per the analysis. On the other hand, her relatively young age of 59 would flip the narrative of which party has a president too old to assume office.
• Blunder? In the Atlantic, Elaina Plott Calabro takes Biden and the White House to task for a broken promise. What's happening now "is precisely the sort of moment that the 81-year-old Biden had once professed to anticipate, or at the very least to be ready for: when, after assessing soberly the diminishing returns of his leadership, he would stand aside for a new generation," she writes. "But if you believe Biden ever took seriously that it could come to this, that he would be pressured to cede his party's leadership to her, then I have a bridge to sell you in Wilmington." In the end, Biden's best promotion of Harris was an "inadvertent" one—his disastrous debate performance.
• Donors: In a story not explicitly pegged to Harris, the New York Times reports that "many wealthy Democratic donors" have begun waging their own efforts to pressure Biden to withdraw. Some are threatening to withhold future contributions unless Biden steps down—including a Disney heir—and others are planning to direct their money to down-ballot candidates should he remain in the race. The moves "expose a remarkable and growing rift between the party's contributor class and its standard-bearer," per the Times.

(More Kamala Harris stories.)