Senator Chuck Schumer of New York sat in the foyer of President Biden’s Rehoboth Beach house, tired and tense. He had not slept the night before, and on the four-hour drive from Brooklyn to Delaware, he had rehearsed out loud what he planned to say, reviewing notecards as he prepared for what he thought might be the most high-stakes speech he would ever give, to an audience of one.
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It was July 13, 2024, a humid summer afternoon just before four o’clock, and Mr. Schumer, the Democratic leader of the Senate, was about to make a blunt case to Mr. Biden that he needed to drop his bid for a second term.
If there were a secret ballot among Democratic senators, Mr. Schumer would tell the president, no more than five would say he should continue running. Mr. Biden’s own pollsters assessed that he had about a 5 percent chance of prevailing against Donald J. Trump, Mr. Schumer would tell him — information that was apparently news to the president. And if the president refused to step aside, the senator would argue, the consequences for Democrats and Mr. Biden’s own legacy after a half-century of public service would be catastrophic.
“If you run and you lose to Trump, and we lose the Senate, and we don’t get back the House, that 50 years of amazing, beautiful work goes out the window,” Mr. Schumer said. “But worse — you go down in American history as one of the darkest figures.”
He would end with a directive. “If I were you,” Mr. Schumer said, “I wouldn’t run, and I’m urging you not to run.”