Biden's Exit Cost One Top Adviser a Lot of Money

President Biden's exit from the 2024 race cost one of his top advisers the chance to earn a staggering payday. Mike Donilon told a House panel on Thursday that he would have collected a $4 million bonus had Biden won reelection, reports CNN. As it was, Donilon already was earning a $4 million salary for working on the campaign, as was previously reported in the book Original Sin: President Biden's Decline, Its Cover-up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again, by Jake Tapper of CNN and Alex Thompson of Axios.

• Testimony: Donilon spoke behind closed doors to investigators for the House Oversight Committee, which is looking into Biden's fitness in office and his use of an autopen, per Fox News.
• Context: Axios frames the Donilon money like so: Biden had been under intense pressure to leave the race, but he kept resisting. The Donilon testimony shows his top political adviser "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."
• Debate: In his testimony, Donilon made the case that Democrats overreacted to Biden's infamous debate with Donald Trump. And he downplayed the suggestion Biden wasn't up to the job. "Every president ages over the four years of a presidency and President Biden did as well, but he also continued to grow stronger and wiser as a leader as a result of being tested by some of the most difficult challenges any president has ever faced," he said, per Axios.