Progressives enraged as Democrats reportedly privately admit Trump isn't an 'existential threat to democracy'

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Trump challenges Biden to golf match: 'Did you ever see him swing?'

Former President Donald Trump challenged President Joe Biden to an 18-hole golf match during a rally Tuesday in Doral, Fla.

Liberals on social media seethed in reaction to Democratic lawmakers reportedly admitting behind the scenes that former President Trump isn't a "threat to democracy" as their party loudly claims. 

New York Times columnist Ezra Klein appeared on The Bulwark Podcast Tuesday and revealed what "top Democrats" have told him off the record as they panic over whether they should support or abandon President Biden on their ticket. 

"People are weighing this set of things. Like, ‘It would be quite unpleasant for me personally to come out against the president as an elected official in the Democratic Party,' and weighing what will happen if Donald Trump wins, and saying, in a revealed preference way, ‘I can live with Donald Trump winning,’" Klein said. "And I've heard people say that to me off the record, to be fair-"

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New York Times columnist Ezra Klein said "top Democrats" told him that they don't actually think former President Trump is an "existential threat to democracy." (Lloyd Bishop/NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal via Getty Images)

"Really?" podcast host Tim Miller reacted. 

"I've had top Democrats say to me, basically, say something like, ‘I don’t know why all these Democrats who think Donald Trump is an existential threat to democracy are acting the way they are. But the reason I'm acting the way I am is because I don't think that,'" Klein continued. 

"Who the f--- is this?" an angered Miller exclaimed. "Out your sources, Ezra!" 

"I find it maddening, but I do find it consistent," Klein responded. 

Klein later told Miller, "I think you have to at some point say, whatever these Democrats are saying in public, they're more resigned and more willing to just be the resistance to a Trump presidency than a lot of their public-facing rhetoric would suggest."

"You have a calm voice, but you're skyrocketing my f---ing blood pressure right now," Miller said. "Ezra, I'm just, like, so f---ing mad."

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Former President Trump has seen a bump in the polls following last month's presidential debate.  (Mario Tama/Getty Images)

Miller shared the "GALLING exchange" on X, sparking anger among other anti-Trump voices.

"Absolutely f---ing enraging," former Obama speechwriter and Pod Save America co-host Jon Favreau reacted.

"Correction: I was not being much too easy on the Democrats. I was being much, much, much too easy on them," New York Magazine writer Jonathan Chait said. 

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Progressive activist Aaron Regunberg posted, "This is a story with actual, legitimate villains. Here they are. May they rot in hell." 

"If a party is filled with this many useless people, there is no reason for it to exist," Vox writer Sean Illing said.

Washington Post assignment editor Damir Marusic remarked, "It’s so quaint, the idealism. It’s as if people living in a city devoted to politics don’t understand politics at all." 

President Biden shocked the nation with his disastrous debate performance, sparking calls for him to step out of the 2024 race. (Getty Images)

Rep. Jared Golden, D-Maine, offered a similar sentiment publicly in an op-ed published in the Bangor Daily News with the headline "Donald Trump is going to win the election and democracy will be just fine."

Biden is facing mounting pressure to withdraw from the presidential race despite vowing to remain on the ballot til November following his disastrous debate performance. 

Democrats on Capitol Hill have been facing turmoil in recent weeks, with many publicly supporting Biden but reportedly expressing otherwise in private. 

Wednesday night Vermont Sen. Peter Welch joined eight House Democrats in calling for Biden to step aside. Several members of the media have also been vocal in calling for his removal from the ticket. 

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Hollywood A-lister and Democratic megadonor George Clooney, who co-hosted Biden's star-studded fundraiser in Los Angeles just weeks before the debate, penned a scathing essay in The New York Times calling for a new nominee. 

"It’s devastating to say it, but the Joe Biden I was with three weeks ago at the fund-raiser was not the Joe "big F-ing deal" Biden of 2010. He wasn’t even the Joe Biden of 2020. He was the same man we all witnessed at the debate," Clooney wrote.