Welcome back to The Best & The Brightest. I’m Tara Palmeri.

🚨 Podcasting alert: If you missed it, be sure to check out my incredible lineup of guests from the last week on Somebody’s Gotta Win: Meghan McCain on the political implications of the Hur report; conservative journalist Charlie Spiering on the Kamala problem; and Democratic Rep. Brendan Boyle on why he thinks the 2024 election will come down to a nail-biter in his home state. (Also, I appeared on The Bill Simmons Podcast on Tuesday, where we talked through the messy start to the 2024 election.)

Also, as if you didn’t need another reason to subscribe to Puck, those who have been following my reporting on the R.N.C. were the first to know, weeks ahead of the rest of the media, that Trump had been pushing to oust Ronna McDaniel and install his campaign chief Chris LaCivita in an operational role. Last week, I was also the first to report that he was considering Lara Trump for co-chair. When I poll-tested it with a committee member, he called the move “really nepotistic.” But alas, Trump has made his intentions clear and the bus is moving forward, even though he’s yet to technically win the nomination.

In tonight’s edition, I dive into fresh fears for Democrats about Biden’s reelection chances. It features a surprise or two.

But first, Abby Livingston has the latest dish from the Hill…

• New York maps: Less than 24 hours after Tom Suozzi’s victory in NY-3’s special election to replace George Santos, Dems were brought down to earth following the release of the new redistricting maps for New York state. These new congressional lines mostly bolster incumbents from both parties—a setback for Democrats’ ambitions to win Republican seats in the Hudson Valley and Long Island. (New York is the most important state in this year’s House races.) However, there are no assurances that Democratic-controlled Albany will approve the map, and my sources from both parties think its chances of passage are slim.
• Hudson rally: Washington Republicans I’ve spoken with in recent days have mostly processed their defeat in NY-3 with a shrug. They blame the Santos hangover, or argue the district may never have been as gettable as the early numbers suggested. There’s not the kind of soul-searching that would have been inevitable had the Democrats lost. I’m not even hearing regretful chatter tied to the G.O.P.’s House margin problem, beyond anger that Santos was expelled in the first place.

  What has struck me is how little criticism has been directed toward Richard Hudson, the chair of the N.R.C.C., which is usually pro forma after losing an expensive special election. In fact, while the N.R.C.C. has lagged behind the D.C.C.C. in fundraising most months this term, Hudson has largely seemed immune from criticism. For one thing, he’s well-regarded within the staffer class because he once served as a House chief. And amid the endless conflagrations in the larger Republican conference over the last six months, the N.R.C.C. leader has come to represent the rare steady hand.

  More proof of his popularity: I hear his name uttered most frequently as a replacement for Cathy McMorris Rodgers as the top Republican at Energy and Commerce (one of the best gigs on the Hill).

• The retirement contagion: What is freaking out Republicans, however, is the fact that retirements just won’t stop. In fact, it may be a snowballing problem for the conference. The latest three—C.M.R, Mike Gallagher, and Mark Green—have completely reframed conversations around this topic I’ve had with House G.O.P. operative sources over the last week.

  Grave concerns surround the loss of institutional memory, and anxiety over which rabble-rousing members will replace the pragmatists in chairmanships and other senior roles. But perhaps most concerning is the contagion factor. Every time a normie Republican, like C.M.R., hangs it up, they leave behind similar-minded colleagues who suddenly realize how isolated they will be in next term’s probably vastly Trumpier conference.

  Moreover, the dysfunction of the last few weeks has underscored the pointlessness of engaging in ambitious legislating. The only Republicans who seem to be enjoying their jobs are the ones addicted to social media. “It’s like when you’re at a party, and everyone’s doing blow, and you don’t do blow,” a Republican consultant told me. “Are you gonna stick around? No.”

And then, on Monday evening, The Daily Show’s newly reinstated host Jon Stewart said the quiet part out loud. In an eight-minute segment, Stewart carefully lanced the narrative of the 81-year-old president as secretly spry, focused, and in-control behind the scenes. If Biden was so privately energetic, Stewart asked, why didn’t the Democrats release that video. Yes, sure, Trump is a horrific danger, but was Biden really the only option?

In my conversations, the segment infuriated loyal Bidenites but also gave voice to a cohort of Democrats who are seriously infuriated about the current state of affairs. “Stewart has created a permission structure for Democrats to have a final gut check: Are you really going to do this?” the leader of one Democratic group told me. “Jon Stewart is saying, Democratic Party, do it for your own sake. He’s doing a better job of saying the quiet part out loud. For so long, they’ve been making people feel like they’re being gaslit.”

In fact, for many Democrats in professional Washington, Stewart’s monologue was cathartic. It forced them to re-examine how the party allowed Biden to glide to the nomination without any challenge—even rearranging the primary calendar to facilitate his path—while perhaps offering that “permission structure” to ask the question they’ve long feared, without being placed in the “prick” bucket next to David Axelrod. Honestly, I’ve experienced some version of this phenomenon for years. Biden has an authentic and lovable political brand, but he is managed by a ruthlessly obsessive and efficient communications apparatus that has kept the tone on message, at least outwardly. To wit: I’ve often had sources backtrack saying, “Oh, that’s going to get me in trouble,” knowing they would get nasty-grams from the White House...

Nevertheless, I’ve been surprised by how often the Stewart interview has come up in my recent conversations about the president’s reelection campaign. “Jon Stewart is going to force Democrats to come up with better talking points because he’s going to skewer you,” said a top operative at a pro-Biden super PAC. Or, as another operative close to party leadership put it: “Jon Stewart has the ability to rip off the scab. The rest [of the late night comedians] will follow. They’ve knocked at it, but gingerly. SNL will follow and that will be even worse.”

On some level, Bidenworld has also been contemplating the inevitability of this moment, in some form or other, since 2015. But the strategy has always ostensibly been to plow through it, Rudy-style, as the lovable underdog, defying haters and doubters along the way. And, to be fair, that plan has sort of worked. It was almost precisely four years ago that the Democratic establishment locked arms around Biden after his South Carolina primary victory. And his victory in the general election reinforced the narrative that he was the steady hand, the reliable leader who could, and had, defeated Trump—all true things at the time. One former Biden alum dismissed the concerns, recalling all of the naysayers they ignored on their way to the White House. “Since 2019, we have a lot of experience offering backbone transplants for the chronically panicked,” he said. “If they’d prefer their role in this moment in history be screeching while we win, I can’t identify with that. But I guess that’s why they’re them and we’re us.”

But recent polls suggest that logic is no longer evident, or at least obvious. And that epiphany has exacerbated recent frustrations. “He made this selfish decision, and it put him and the party in a bad spot. He thought that he was the only person on this planet who could beat Trump, and he’s probably the only person on this planet who could lose to Trump. It’s insane,” said one top donor. Another fundraiser put it more bluntly. “We’re up shit creek, and it’s all their fault,” said this person, who is hoping the Democrats can retake the House in order to potentially rein in Trump. And a top super PAC official put it even more succinctly: “I’m scared, I’m scared, I don’t know what to think.”

Some Democrats have shifted the blame to the party’s bench—ostensibly Gavin Newsom, Gretchen Whitmer, and J.B. Pritzker—for not stepping up and grabbing the baton, especially after Dean Phillips created an opening. Sure, maybe that’s true, but as my partner Teddy Schleifer recently noted, the party’s top bundlers are set with the plan. After the Democrats’ successful midterms, they decided to stay the course. “It’s fucking panic. Rightfully so,” said the operative close to party leadership. “There’s no one to blame, it’s just the absence of leadership. If Newsom wanted to be a leader, go get it.”

Of course, it’s too late for Newsom or any of them because of ballot access issues. One defender of Newsom, who is waiting patiently for 2028, said it would have been nearly impossible to take on the party apparatus without facing consequences in the next election or being accused of facilitating Trump by weakening Biden.“All Democrats, up and down the line, are like ‘This is deeply irresponsible, it’s really putting us in a precarious place,’” said another top bundler. “Maybe it will work out; maybe they’re right.”

The White House declined to comment.

Democrats are also questioning the White House’s focus on “saving democracy.” Maybe Mitt Romney was right about that argument being a “bust” and that memories of January 6 aren’t more salient than border fears and economic security. “They need to stop the holier-than-thou, not attack Trump thing,” said one paranoid Democratic operative. “It didn’t work for the Republicans running against Trump who thought chaos would turn off G.O.P. voters, why would it work now?”

And then there is the grand paranoia—the belief that, in a lot of ways, 2020 was an anomaly. The global health crisis, rise of Black Lives Matter, the impeachments, and disgust over the murder of George Floyd all activated the Democratic base, particularly young people and Black voters. Meanwhile, Trump also sabotaged himself by telling his supporters not to engage in early voting. Now, some of those same B.L.M. activists are protesting Biden over his handling of the war in Gaza. “We know how we are going to win suburban white women if it’s going to be all abortion,” said one former party official. “What are you going to do on Black voters, Latino voters, students? We’re losing [support] in all of them.”

For now, many Democrats are eagerly scanning former Obama aide Dan Pfeiffer’s Substack for hot tips on how to take the heat off Biden. He writes: “Some things that poll particularly poorly include: Referring to attacks on Biden ‘ageism;’ Citing older celebrities like Clint Eastwood, Harrison Ford, and the Rolling Stones as evidence that 81 isn’t that old; Focusing on Kamala Harris’ possible step into the presidency (this brings up the idea of a catastrophic event for Biden).”

Meanwhile, allow me to give the final word to James Carville. “Look, every four years you know what’s going to happen: They say, ‘The future of our Republic is on the precipice.’” he told me. “This is like the little boy that cried wolf—[but] oh shit, there’s really a wolf now. Yes, there is a lot of pearl-clutching. I think people are genuinely scared.”