Why Democrats’ favorite podcast turned on Joe Biden

The Pod — as Democrats who follow Obama veterans’ Pod Save America call it — worked to save America in 2020 by getting Joe Biden elected. Now its hosts want to do it again by getting him to step aside.

In the two weeks since Biden’s disastrous debate performance against Donald Trump, three of the high-profile hosts of Pod Save America and founders of its parent Crooked Media have concluded that the president can’t run the kind of campaign he needs to beat Donald Trump, and the Democrats need an alternative.

The trio — Jon Favreau, Jon Lovett, and Tommy Vietor— are far from alone in the media in their calls for Biden to step aside. (Many liberal pundits at places like the New York Times were doing it before the debate even concluded). But their criticism hits particularly hard: The Crooked Media trio remain deeply tapped into Democratic politics, and have created a friendly platform for Democratic politicians and officials since the organization’s founding in 2017. And when they have spoken out against Biden, fairly or not, they have reminded some in Biden-world of the rifts between him and President Barack Obama over the years.