(Washington Free Beacon) One of President Joe Biden’s closest friends and staunchest supporters has a simple message: Big changes need to happen at the White House or Democrats will want a different nominee in 2024.
For South Carolina Democratic state senator and longtime Biden adviser Dick Harpootlian, voters are awaiting any evidence that the president is making a meaningful effort to turn the economy around. An easy first step? A staffing overhaul.
“If I had any advice to Joe Biden, it would be to fire someone,” Harpootlian told the Washington Free Beacon in a wide-ranging interview. “The people who are supposed to be serving you are not serving you. I’m not saying they’re malicious, I’m not saying they’re lazy—I’m just saying whatever they’re doing, it’s not working.”
Harpootlian’s analysis is hard to argue with. Biden is now the most unpopular president at this point in his term in at least a century, according to an aggregate of polls from FiveThirtyEight. Skyrocketing inflation, a never-ending border crisis, and a likely recession are just a few of the problems that have left broad swaths of the public with the impression that the White House is incapable of governing.
Barring some dramatic staffing changes, Harpootlian said, Biden runs the risk of an exasperated Democratic Party seeking a new candidate in two years. As of right now, he added, “There’s no messaging coming out of the White House.”
“Well, I mean, I know Joe Biden. I’ve known him for 30 years,” Harpootlian said. “I don’t think he’s too old. But if the economy doesn’t improve, if this government doesn’t produce results, you know, that’d be a perfect excuse for folks to ask him to not run again, or, I mean, if he can’t deliver, they’ll use age as an excuse.”
Democratic Party insiders have launched a whisper campaign in recent weeks over the question of whether Biden should run for a second term. These individuals, according to media reports, cite Biden’s age and diminishing cognitive ability as a factor they are most concerned about.
Few men in politics know Biden better than Harpootlian. In 2015, Harpootlian helped run the Draft Biden PAC and attacked the then-vice president’s would-be chief rival, Hillary Clinton. This year, Harpootlian’s wife, Jamie Harpootlian, was confirmed as ambassador to Slovenia.
