Remember That Hollywood Fundraiser Where Obama Had To Usher Joe Offstage?

Last June 17,

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre on Monday dismissed speculation that President Biden froze while standing in the stage lights and had to be guided to an exit by former President Barack Obama at the end of an A-list Hollywood fundraiser on Saturday night. /p>

“Let’s not forget President Obama, President Biden have a relationship. They are friends. They’re like family to each other, and I think that’s what you saw,” she told reporters during a press briefing in response to a question posed by The Daily Mail in reference to a viral clip shared by The Hollywood Reporter. “You saw the President put his hand … on the back of President Biden and they walked off the stage after taking questions … from Jimmy Kimmel. That is what you saw.”

According to Reuters, Joe "drew cheers from the audience at a packed Peacock Theater in downtown Los Angeles, where Hollywood celebrities George Clooney and Julia Roberts were among the guests". It's starting to look like there was a lot more to this story, and we may or may not ever get the whole plot.

While the coverage played up Clooney's support for Biden, it looks like Obama was soon enough in the process of using Clooney to help usher Joe out of the race.

Activist actor George Clooney is outraged after being manipulated by former President Barack Obama into lobbying for Kamala Harris to take faltering Joe Biden's place in the 2024 election – and then getting thrown under the bus by his onetime buddy when she lost, RadarOnline.com can reveal.

"George is furious with Obama for disappearing after the election disaster and leaving him holding the bag for pushing the plan with his Hollywood pals", a showbiz insider said.

Clooney, 63, wrote an opinion piece in July calling for President Biden to drop his reelection campaign, citing his declining mental faculties.

"We are not going to win in November with this president", he declared. Biden, 82, heeded that advice 11 days later, ceding his campaign to Vice President Harris. And the minute Kamala's historic bid for the White House came up short, Clooney started taking heat! "Since I'm in a deep depression and feel like lashing out at someone, what's the plan now, George Clooney?" One of his many same-party critics writes on social media. "It's all George Clooney's fault!"

Meanwhile, Trump supporters gleefully taunted the uber-liberal star.

"Trump should not forget to thank Hollywood celebrities – especially George Clooney", cracked one poster.

Biden's apparent freeze-up at the June 15 Hollywood fundraiser followed a week of well-publicized episodes in France and Italy where his cognitive decline became unavoidably clearer. These events must have begun to focus Obama's mind on whether Joe could last through the election in that condition, buit I've always thought the real catalyst in the decision to force Joe out of the race was the July 13 assassination attempt against Trump in Butler, PA. This showed the estent of Trump's popular support in the key state of Pennsylvania -- Sen Fetterman saw the same thing -- as well as the Trump campaign's ability quickly to exploit the visuals.

Over the following week, a consensus emerged that Joe should drop out, led by Clooney. According to the BBC, on July 11, just before the assassination attempt,

George Clooney has issued a damning call for Joe Biden to quit the US presidential race, hours after senior Democrat Nancy Pelosi swerved questions about whether he should continue.

The actor and prominent Democratic fundraiser said the president had won many battles in his career, "but the one battle he cannot win is the fight against time".

The story mentions doubts from Michalel Douglas and continues,

The celebrities' comments came after Mrs Pelosi, the former House Speaker, joined growing disquiet in the party, saying time was "running short" for Mr Biden, 81, to decide whether to stay in the race after his stumbling debate against Trump.

In hindsight, it's clear that the campaign was orchestrated, with Clooney's op-ed following Pelosi's remarks, but Obama stayed in the background. It's much better known that Pelosi applied the final pressure to push Joe out over the weekend of July 20-21, but we still know very little of what other behind-the-scnes discussions took place, almost certainlhy involvng Obama -- but Obama has avoided any public blame to date.

Another question on which we're beginning to get hints is Kamala's activities during this period. In this post, I discussed reports that by June 23, only two days after Joe's withdrawal, Kamala had consolidated support for her nomination. Yet during the whole month between Joe's stumbles in Europe followed by the Hollywood freezeup, none of the potential replacements -- Harris, Newsom, Whitmer, and Beshear -- expressed anything but support for Biden. Newsom in particular said, after the disastrous June 27 debate,

“No, our nominee is Joe Biden,” Newsom told reporters, per NewsNation affiliate KTLA. “I’m looking forward to voting for him in November.”

Added Newsom: “I will never turn my back on him.”

It sounds increasingly to me as though much more was happening behind the scenes than we've been told. I especially wonder if Pelosi made it clear to Newsom all along that it wasn't his time. At the same link, following the June 27 debate,

". . . who else could beat former President Donald Trump? Who else would Biden pass the baton to if it ever came to that?” Alex Gangitano, White House Correspondent for NewsNation partner The Hill said on “Morning in America” Monday, adding that something like that happening would be ” extremely unlikely.”

Oh, baloney. The wheels were already turning, and he knew it.

Biden and sources close to him have said he has no plans to drop out of the race, and even said donations spiked following Thursday’s debate against Donald Trump. Some names have been floated to be the new Democratic nominee if he does, but so far, they pushed back against the need to choose a different candidate.

There’s been speculation about Vice President Kamala Harris stepping in to run for president. As she is Biden’s successor, Gangitano said, Harris would be able to take some of the funds he raised on the Biden-Harris ticket.

The Hill reports that a Democrat who served in the Obama White House said Harris “clearly has a purpose now to make the case for what they have accomplished.” A Democratic donor told the outlet that in the next 30 days, it may be up to her to make the case.

I'm getting the feeling the whole thing was gamed out weeks in advance. The only ones who were out of the loop were Biden himself and the US public.