The Biden political machine has turned its guns on a former aide who has spoken critically of the increasingly unpopular president’s reelection efforts.
The message from Biden’s mafia-style enforcers to current and former members of the president’s political circle is clear: break the “Biden code of silence” and get blackballed from Democrat politics — or worse.
A report from Axios observes “an unusual load of West Wing dirty laundry is being aired about former staffer” Michael LaRosa, former press secretary to first lady Jill Biden.
“A surprising number of President Biden’s current and former aides — at least six — are lining up to tell backstairs tales to The Daily Mail,” the outlet reports.
The timing of the stale allegations is no accident. The Axios report continues, “Colleagues bit their tongues for over a year, until LaRosa recently started criticizing the White House on cable news programs and social media.”
The charges levied against LaRosa, over a year after his departure from the East Wing — include leaking information about Willow, the Biden’s cat, to tipping off reporters about the Biden’ upcoming travel — a common occurrence in scoop-hungry Washington.
Sources also told the Daily Mail that during a state visit to Ukraine, LaRosa attempted to bring a male date to his hotel room in violation of security protocols before security forces intervened. LaRosa, who is openly gay, denies he violated any rules or disobeyed any instructions from Secret Service agents and disputes the characterizations of the unnamed sources.
The sources also paint a picture of LaRosa as a hothead, with one source telling the outlet “He was talked to about his behavior and told you can’t yell at colleagues, that you have to modulate your temper.”
Yet despite the new charges against LaRosa, at the time his alleged actions took place, they apparently did not trigger Biden’s clearly stated punishment for such behavior. Biden publicly told his staff “treat another colleague with disrespect, talk down to someone, I promise you I will fire you on the spot.”
In addition, current and former White House colleagues have attacked LaRosa’s credibility, deriding him as a low level staffer despite his closeness with a first lady and an immense amount of influence with President Biden and across the White House.
NBC News reported White House aides call the first lady “the decider,” claiming she has “unparalleled influence and impact on the president.”
LaRosa’s criticisms of Biden’s reelection efforts that triggered the Biden retaliation are hardly unwarranted.
Biden is polling behind former President Trump, a notion once unthinkable among Democrat operatives. His approval has reached historic lows, with his approval rating in the mid-thirties in various polls. And his popularity with key demographics Democrats have long tsken for granted, including young people, blacks, and Hispanics, has plummeted as Trump has made inroads.
Many high-level Democrat Party operatives have criticized the notoriously insular Biden-world for seemingly turning a blind eye to the president’s historically low popularity. The high-level smears against LaRosa come as the New York Times reports Democrats in key Senate and House critical battleground states worry that Biden will be a drag on their races.
The Times report on the growing concerns from key states, which mirror those expressed for months by LaRosa, says:
These Democrats fear that the Biden campaign is late in building a strong organization in the handful of states that are likely to determine next year’s presidential election. They point to polling numbers showing Mr. Biden lagging far behind Democratic candidates for Congress in those states and struggling among key groups of voters, including Black and Latino Americans.
A Biden-supporting Democrat mayor in Georgia — a state critical to Biden’s hopes of remaining in the White House — told the Times that Team Biden is pursuing “a passive strategy,” lamenting Republicans were far more excited about next year’s election than Democrats.
“I don’t see any passion, any excitement, nothing,” he said.
Additionally, Democrats have grown concerned with the President’s emerging ties with his son Hunter Biden’s business dealings. The President’s refutations of attacks about his level of involvement and knowledge of his son’s business dealings have evolved as it has become clear the President was indeed aware of Hunter’s business ties, including with overseas entities.
High-level Democrats have sounded the alarm about the White House strategy for pushing back against Hunter-related attacks. LaRosa is perhaps the most high-level former Biden official to publicly sound the alarm.
Yet despite the growing anxiety among Democrats about Biden’s reelection prospects, and Biden’s plummeting numbers in key states, his team has made clear they will not tolerate canaries in the coal mine. And their personal attacks against LaRosa, who has made clear he wants to see Biden reelected and has kept his criticisms against Biden’s floundering reelection efforts respectful and professional, showcase a level of aggressiveness that, frankly, many Democrats would like to see more productively channeled.
With Biden’s allies so ruthlessly mobilizing against LaRosa for stating the obvious, voters would be justified in asking what else may be out there that the public does not know because people are afraid to come forward.
Bradley Jaye is a Capitol Hill Correspondent for Breitbart News. Follow him on X/Twitter at @BradleyAJaye.
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