Former Rep. Dean Phillips (D-Minn.), who ran against former President Biden for the Democratic nomination last year, said he urged Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker and Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer to launch their own 2024 challenges before entering the race himself.
In a piece published Thursday in The Free Press, Phillips reflected on the new reporting by CNN’s Jake Tapper and Axios’s Alex Thompson about steps Biden’s inner circle allegedly took to shield the American public from signs of Biden’s aging.
Phillips, whose primary challenge centered largely on Biden’s age, said he recalls spending time with Biden in 2021 and 2022 and being “alarmed to see the president’s obvious decline in communication skills, gait, and leadership capacity.”
He said he was sure the president was not able to serve a second term after the White House holiday party in December 2022.
“My opinion wasn’t an outlier. My congressional colleagues, like me, had eyes; behind closed doors we acknowledged the reality, lamented our party leadership’s inaction, and recognized the impending disaster awaiting us in November 2024,” Phillips wrote in his piece.
“After many of the same hushed conversations, I tried to impress a sense of urgency,” he continued. “I made calls to potential presidential candidates, like Illinois governor JB Pritzker and Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer, to urge them to run. But they didn’t even want their names mentioned—let alone return my calls.”
Phillips said it was at that point that he publicly called for an open primary and called on prominent Democrats — like his senator, Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), former Vice President Harris and California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) — “to throw their hats in the ring.”
Only then, he said, did he decide to enter the race.
In his piece, he reiterated his view that it was not a coincidence that Biden’s spokesperson announced he had stage 4 prostate cancer at the same time the new reporting attracted the public’s attention.
“I am outraged to see that the important lessons from the top scandal of the 2024 election have still not been learned,” Phillips wrote in his piece.
“Constant lying and gaslighting the public about Biden’s health has cost the Democratic Party the public’s trust. Rebuilding it first requires the courage and honesty to admit to what happened,” he continued.
