Comment Three days after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. WadePresident Biden used a break between Group of Seven summits at the luxury Schloss Elmau resort in Germany to receive an update on the stunning and sudden loss of abortion rights for millions of Americans at home. Mingling with top aides, including some who called from the White House, Biden said at the start of the call that he wanted to support ending the Senate vote on encryption Roe into law, a position he has so far refused to take, angering many Democrats in the process. But Biden kept his decision private until three days later, when, during a press conference in Madrid, he used the carefully crafted language he and his team had perfected moments before, decrying the Supreme Court’s “outrageous behavior ” and requesting “an exemption from the filibuster for this action to address the Supreme Court’s decision.” Other voices are emerging as some Democrats grow impatient with Biden For many Democrats, however, it was too little too late, just one more example during two weeks in which Biden and his team struggled to come up with a muscular plan of action on abortion rights, even as the decision of the Supreme Court had been heralded two months earlier with the leak of a draft opinion. Biden and his team were also caught off guard by the timing of the decision and, in the immediate hours that followed, failed to channel the raw and visceral anger that many Americans felt over the decision. For many increasingly frustrated Democrats, Biden’s belated response on abortion was just the latest example of a failure to rise to the moment in a wave of conservative reversals, from gun control to environmental protections and voting rights. Some aspects of the White House’s response seemed to some Democrats like a routine response, including stakeholder calls and the creation of a task force, to an existential crisis. “Leadership right now is coming from the streets, and we’d like the White House and Democrats at large to join us in that effort,” Rachel Carmona, the executive director of the Women’s March, said Thursday. “I think Biden has an opportunity to step into a leadership role in a way that he hasn’t.” This account of the administration’s 14-day struggle to craft a message and policy plan following the Supreme Court ruling Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization is based on interviews with 26 senior White House officials, Democratic lawmakers, abortion rights activists, Democratic strategists and other Biden allies, many of whom spoke on condition of anonymity to share candid details. White House officials have defended the urgency of Biden’s response and the actions he has taken on abortion, which they say are in line with mainstream opinion. “The president is showing his deep anger as an American and is carrying out his bold plan — which is the product of months of hard work — since this decision was issued,” White House communications director Kate Bedingfield said in a statement Saturday. “Joe Biden’s goal to meet Dobbs it is not to satisfy some activists who have been firmly out of step with the Democratic Party mainstream. It’s about reaching out to women at risk and gathering a broad-based coalition to defend a woman’s right to choose now, just as she gathered such a coalition to win during the 2020 campaign,” she said. While many outraged Democrats and activists argue the administration could do much more, others say they understand the White House’s view that its options are limited and that most major steps should be taken by Congress or the states. “The reason this feels different is because the decision we’ve been dreading for almost 50 years has finally happened,” said Scott Mulhauser, a Democratic strategist who previously served as a senior adviser to Biden’s commerce secretary. “Right now, as the country takes a giant step backwards, and moments like this are all too often couched in the White House as if they had a magic wand to fix everything, rather insufficient votes in Congress and a regressive majority of the Supreme Court.” Abortion is prohibited in these states. See where the laws have changed. On Friday, Biden gave an emotional speech that galvanized many Democrats with its tone of anger and call for battle, while signing an executive order strengthening abortion rights and access to contraception. She protested the Supreme Court’s decision, calling it “unfair” and an “exercise of brute political power” and urged women “to turn out in record numbers to claim the rights that have been taken away from them by the court”. But Biden’s gentler tendencies were still in evidence as he referred to “my Republican friends” even as he called them “extremists” and mocked them for “talking about getting Congress to pass a national ban” on abortion. “One of the reasons he was elected was that he’s a decent, moderate person and there’s no doubt he can raise his voice, but it doesn’t come naturally to him and he doesn’t do well,” David said. Axelrod, former senior adviser to President Barack Obama. “People got the president they voted for, and I think those are good qualities that he has, but they may not be the qualities that some people, particularly activist Democrats, are looking for right now.” About four hours after the decision was revoked Roe v. Wade issued on June 24, the White House emailed several abortion rights allies asking them to join a call with top officials that afternoon to “hear more about the Supreme Court’s decision and the fight ahead.” . Those invited expected a fiery call to action and a detailed plan from the White House, a road map not just for the immediate aftermath, but for the weeks and months ahead. Instead, top White House and administration officials stressed the issue is important to Biden and reiterated actions the president had already outlined earlier in the day, including expanding access to the abortion pill and protecting women who they travel across state lines to get an abortion. The call lasted about 20 minutes and the employees did not ask questions, according to outside counsel who was on the call. Afterwards, many attendees complained to each other that the call was a waste of time, the outside counsel said, and left deflated. The sentiment was similar after the draft opinion was leaked almost two months ago. At the time, Democratic activists quickly contacted the White House asking for ways to organize a response. But many of the groups felt they were met with vague platitudes, a handful of listening sessions and promises that the administration was working on a plan, said a Democratic strategist who works with some of the groups. After the official decision was made public, some Democrats felt the administration had wasted valuable time organizing the party machinery to respond, the general added. The Democratic left is disillusioned with Biden. How much could it matter? The day of the decision did not turn out the way White House officials expected or the way Democrats hoped. White House aides expected the Supreme Court to issue the ruling as its final decision for the term on June 30, the day Biden was due to return from Madrid. It is not clear why they believed this. The court announces expected release dates a little in advance, but does not say which opinions will be dismissed on a particular day. However, the president had already signed his prepared remarks. Had the decision been made public on June 30, Biden would have given his speech when he returned to Washington, a White House official said. Biden planned to nominate a conservative opponent of abortion rights for life as a federal judge in Kentucky on the same day that Roe was overturned, according to emails first reported by the Louisville Courier Journal. The White House appears to have abandoned that idea after the abortion decision, according to those emails. After the decision was rejected, the White House tried to speed up its timetable. In an Oval Office meeting that morning, Biden gathered with top advisers to refine his remarks. The group focused on actions it could take quickly to protect women’s rights, as well as the impact the decision would have on the lives of millions of Americans and the nearly 50-year effort by Republicans to restrict access to abortion. two senior administration officials said. Democrats are offering a patchwork of countermeasures with Roe overturned Then they sent the president to deliver his speech. “Make no mistake: This decision is the culmination of a decades-long, deliberate effort to upset the balance of our law,” Biden said at the time. “It’s a realization of an extreme ideology and a tragic mistake by the Supreme Court.” But Biden’s delivery lacked the urgent tone many Democrats felt was needed, and even some White House officials later said they wished the president had been more fiery, another senior administration official said. The official added that they felt Biden missed the mark in part because he and his team were unprepared for the timing of the decision and that the reality of the decision had not been finalized. Vice President Harris was on her way to a scheduled speech in Illinois when the decision was made. Her team printed it for her on Air Force Two and she looked at it on the plane as her motorcade sped to its first event, where she and her assistants revised her remarks to reflect the sudden crisis. “This is the first time in our nation’s history that a constitutional right has been taken away from the American people,” Harris said. The White House also canceled a previously scheduled briefing by press secretary Karin Jean-Pierre. Although he gave an interview on MSNBC, the canceled briefing disappointed some White House allies, who felt the administration should…
