Pete Buttigieg told Meet the Press that President Biden “should not have run” for reelection in 2024, but conceded that “it was literally his decision” to do so.

Said Buttigieg: “He should not have run. And if he had made that decision sooner, we might have been better off. But it literally was his decision.”

He added: “I was not included in the process of deciding whether the president should run again. He made that decision and I think I’m not alone in believing that he should have made the decision not to run sooner.”

“Of all the people in the White House, I was in the worst position to make the case that he should drop out. I knew it would come off to him as incredibly self-serving if I advised him not to run. He would see it as naked ambition, perhaps as poisonous disloyalty, even if my only message was: Don’t let the other guy win.”

— Kamala Harris, in her new book, 107 Days.

Seth Masket polled Democratic Party county chairs in November 2024 and then again during the summer of 2025.

“What really stands out about this figure is that there was even less of a consensus about the causes of Harris’ loss in the summer of 2025 than there was right after election day in 2024. Most chairs had named economic conditions as their top narrative in November. This was still the top answer in July, but quite a few of those originally naming economic conditions had bled to blaming Biden’s unpopularity, candidate traits, or other causes.”

Ashwin Ramaswami (D), who unsuccessfully ran for a state Senate seat in November, has filed a lawsuit against his Republican opponent, state Sen. Shawn (R) for making “outrageous, false, and malicious” statements, the Atlanta Journal Constitution reports.

Landmark Communications, a political consulting firm that worked on Still’s campaign, is also named in the lawsuit.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) told CNN that Democrats turned their backs on the working class.

Said Sanders: “I like Kamala, she’s a friend of mine. But her core consultants, you know, were very influenced by wealthy people.

He added: “How do you run for president and not develop a strong agenda which speaks to the economic crises facing working families?”

Washington Post: “Democrats are eager to turn the page on their 2024 losses — but their central figures from the last election keep stepping back into the spotlight, complicating their efforts to forge a new identity.”

“Many in the party are wary of elevating the people who led them to defeat in 2024 and exasperated to see the drama of that election repeatedly relitigated when they want to keep the focus on pushing back against Trump’s second-term agenda and identifying new leaders.”

“Former President Biden’s top political aide Mike Donilon told congressional investigators Thursday that he was paid $4 million for his work on Biden’s 2024 re-election campaign and would have made an additional $4 million if Biden had won,” Axios reports.

“Donilon’s testimony shows he had a financial incentive for Biden to run for re-election even as the majority of voters expressed doubts about the president’s ability to do the job another four years.”

Former Gov. Andrew Cuomo said he’ll pack his bags and flee to Florida if he loses the NYC mayoral race to socialist Zohran Mamdani, the New York Post reports.

Said Cuomo: “It’s all or nothing. We either win or even I will move to Florida. God forbid!”

Time: “While the idea of a secret ‘Epstein client list’ became a fixation for far-right influencers and members of Trump’s base, the candidate himself rarely brought up Epstein unprompted in campaign speeches or rallies. Instead, it was Trump’s official and unofficial surrogates—many of whom now occupy top posts in his Administration—who repeatedly stoked expectations that explosive revelations were imminent, often suggesting prosecutions were coming and that thousands of pages of damning material would soon be released.”

“Now many in Trump’s base are accusing him of falling far short of what they expected him to do with the Epstein case, partly because of years of rhetoric from his allies that neither Trump nor his campaign did much to refute.”

“Hunter Biden, in his first interview since the 2024 election, denied there was a ‘grand conspiracy’ to cover up issues with his father’s health and said Democrats only lost the race because they abandoned President Joe Biden,” the Washington Post reports.

Said Biden: “We lost the last election because we did not remain loyal to the leader of the party. That’s my position. We had the advantage of incumbency, we had the advantage of an incredibly successful administration, and the Democratic Party literally melted down.”

“In another life we would be friends and go golfing.”

— Donald Trump, quoted by Axios, speaking to Joe Biden after the 2024 election.

Cook Political Report: “For most of modern American political history, one thing about presidential elections was gospel: When more people vote, the Democratic Party benefits.”

“But in 2024, President Donald Trump’s dramatic gains among typically lower-propensity and Democratic-leaning voters — notably voters of color and young people — turned that truism upside-down.”

“A comprehensive new analysis of voter data from the Pew Research Center estimates that if every eligible voter in America had shown up to the polls in November, Trump still would have won the popular vote.”

“In fact, his overall margin of victory may even have been slightly higher.”

CNN: New research shows Trump’s 2024 support became more ethnically and racially diverse.

Mark Cuban told The Bulwark that Vice President Kamala Harris’s team had asked him to submit vetting materials to be considered for vice president during the 2024 campaign, but he turned her down.

Said Cuban: “I’m not very good as the number two person. And so if the last thing we need is me telling Kamala, you know, the president that, no, that’s a dumb idea. Right. And I’m not real good at the shaking hands and kissing babies.”

He added: “She would have fired me within six days.”

President Trump was making comments in the Oval Office and Elon Musk was responding in real time:

TRUMP: I would have won Pennsylvania regardless of Elon.

MUSK: Without me, Trump would have lost the election, Dems would control the House and the Republicans would be 51-49 in the Senate. Such ingratitude.

Nate Cohn: “While the history books will rightfully dwell on whether Democrats could have forestalled another Trump presidency, the question of whether Mr. Trump cost conservatives a more decisive victory might be the more useful one to understand American politics today.”

“Voters wanted change, badly. They were repelled not just by Mr. Biden’s faltering condition, but also by rising prices and perceived failures of Democratic governance on everything from immigration to energy. While it didn’t yield a more decisive Republican victory, the backlash against pandemic-era restrictions, rising prices and ‘woke’ all help explain why a close election felt like a conservative ‘vibe shift.’”

“The race was close for one reason: Donald J. Trump. He was an unpopular felon who had alienated millions of Americans with his comments and actions over nearly a decade. Obviously, President Trump possesses important political strengths, but his weaknesses plainly made a landslide victory more challenging. To the extent the election offered the Republicans an opportunity to win big, he was not the candidate to capitalize on it.”