Biden’s Surprise Challenger & Scalise’s Speaker Weapon

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and Minority Whip Steve Scalise
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and Minority Whip Steve Scalise. Photo: Drew Angerer/Getty Images
Tara Palmeri
December 22, 2022

Last week, in my piece titled Biden’s Inevitability Mythology, I reported on one of the more amusing Washington parlor games of late—the fact that a number of leading Democratic figures, like Gavin Newsom and J.B. Pritzker, are paying diligent lip service regarding their fealty to the president while quietly amassing political organizations of their own, in preparation for the possibility that Joe Biden suddenly decides not to run, or if another challenger “breaks the seal,” which would open the dam. Since then, I learned that Marianne Williamson, the spiritual activist and 2020 candidate, has been actively making significant moves toward challenging Biden.