Biden’s inner circle is key to the Democrats’ political future

Amid the political crisis sparked by President Joe Biden’s poor performance in last week’s presidential debate, Washington’s attention is focused on the president’s inner circle, which could push the president into retreat or an uncertain recovery toward electoral victory.

A handful of advisers and family members are the people who have the most access to the president and who the 81-year-old leader truly listens to, according to US media reports.

Jill Biden, Valerie Biden and Hunter Biden

The president’s wife, one of his sisters and his son are the members of the Biden family on whom the Democrat relies the most. The first lady, according to sources consulted by EFE, has reinforced her role as “anchor” from the president, encouraging him to continue his re-election campaign despite criticism of his performance in the debate.

Despite voices from the Democratic Party and the media calling for her to step down, Jill is “fully convinced“that her husband can beat Trump and, in fact, if he couldn’t, she would be the first to tell him so, sources close to the campaign told EFE.

As Jill herself recounted at a fundraising event the day after the debate, Biden approached her after finishing the meeting with Trump to confess that “I didn’t feel well”, to which she replied she replied “We are not going to allow 90 minutes to define the four years in which you have been president.”.

The president’s sister, Valerie Biden Owens, has led most of his campaigns since he began his political career in 1970 until he decided to run for president in 2020.

On a personal level, she supported Biden when his wife and daughter died in a car accident in 1972, helping him raise his children.

According to Politico, Valerie has also defended her brother’s continued presence in the presidential race, but has expressed concern about the impact it could have on her brother’s health and legacy.

Meanwhile, his son Hunter, a controversial figure due to the lawsuits against him for illegal possession of weapons and his struggle with drug addiction, has redoubled his presence in the president’s life since the presidential debate.

Biden’s son has even been present at White House meetings, and along with Jill, he fervently supports his father’s decision to stay in the presidential race.

Ted Kaufman

The president’s chief political adviser and one of his closest allies. He was part of his team during Biden’s 1972 Senate campaign and has since become a key player in the Democrat’s entourage.

Kaufman, 85, replaced Biden in his Senate seat from Delaware when the president became vice president in 2008.

Biden’s sister Valerie describes him in her autobiographical book as the “compass” of the president: “Joe has long said that Ted Kaufman is the wisest man he knows.”

Ron Klain

He was White House Chief of Staff until February 2023 and currently works as general counsel for the technology company Airbnb.

He has known Biden since the Democrat was in the Senate and was part of his first presidential campaign in 1987. He has an extensive career as an advisor to party figures.blue”, worked as an advisor to Al Gore in 2000 and also for Hilary Clinton’s campaign in 2015.

She was one of the people, along with current presidential adviser Anita Dunn and political strategist Mike Donilon, who helped prepare Biden for the debate.

Mike Donilon

He is a lawyer and one of Biden’s closest political advisers and strategists. He has worked for the president since 1982, when he was in the Senate, through to the number 2 position in the Obama administration and during the 2020 presidential campaign.

He is one of the people in charge of the president’s public speeches and devised the political message for the first race against Trump, focused on the defense of democracy.

According to The New York Times, almost “all“The important decisions of the White House go through Donilon’s filter and together with Dunn and Kaufam, he prepared the president for days at his residence in Camp David for the debate.