Even the most loyal Democrats cringed this week when President Joe Biden shuffled back onto the national stage—among them former First Lady Jill Biden’s long-term aide.
Michael LaRosa, who served as Jill Biden’s communications director, questioned Joe and Jill’s decision to re-emerge on Tuesday just as President Donald Trump’s approval is sinking in countrywide polls.
“I love both Bidens dearly, but staff loyalty means there is a responsibility to provide them with an honest situational awareness, especially when it comes to their public image, no matter how hurtful it is to hear,” LaRosa told The Hill Saturday.
In Biden’s first public post-presidency speech, he slammed Trump for taking a “hatchet” to Social Security. However much they may agree with the sentiment, though, leading Democrats just want the 82-year-old to stay retired.
LaRosa said that if the Bidens “had advisers who had their hand on the pulse of the Democratic Party or national politics, they would have understood the intense level of anger or indifference to them that remains inside our party and isn’t going away anytime soon.”
The Biden-bashing comes as younger contenders—most notably Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY)—rise through the ranks. Confidence in the party’s congressional leadership has sunk to an all-time low, with its approval rating hovering around 25 percent.
Democrats say they’re on a sinking ship and are desperate for a party-wide reboot. They’ve grown even more frustrated as Biden hobbles his way back onto the scene.
The aide continued: “It’s a heartbreaking and tragic ending to their time in public life, but it’s also the truth, and they should index the political realities into their decision making.”
The built-up resentment stems from Biden’s July drop-out of the 2024 presidential race. Many Democrats argue it was too little, too late. A staggering 19 million people who voted for Joe Biden in 2020 stayed home.
LaRosa fears that the spotlight on Biden will distract the public from the current chaos in the White House. Just as Americans begin condemning Trump for the failing economy—overwhelmed by aggressive tariffs—Biden’s comeback has presented the Republican party with someone else to blame.
Trump’s approval numbers are paralleling the plummeting markets, “so it’s a bad time for Biden to re-emerge and remind them of the bad old days,” Democratic strategist Brad Bannon told The Hill.
The message to Biden is clear: read the room. But the former president has done just the opposite.
