White House aides fill group chats with distraught messages about the debate: 'Abysmal'

There was chaos inside the White House Friday as party operatives, longtime aides, and party donors processed their candidate and boss flopping in the disastrous debate with Donald Trump.

A sense of foreboding set in among some Biden aides as they absorbed the car crash performance that has veterans of the Obama and Bill Clinton campaigns openly mulling whether he should be replaced.

‘Right now the people are all talking to each other,’ Bill Clinton guru James Careville told DailyMail.com. ‘Trust me it’s way more than the consultant class. And particularly the donor class,’ he said.

The mood inside the White House is ‘not good,’ CNN reported, as shell-shocked aides traded glum observations on deflated group chats. Aides called the performance ‘abysmal’ and ‘ugly.’

Many aides were so deflated they opted to work from home. We’re just commiserating and we didn’t’ want to do that at a desk,’ said one.

President Biden and some of his top surrogates didn’t have that luxury, with the president holding a rally with supporters in Raleigh, North Carolina.

Some aides were so disconcerted the president's performance in the debate, which began at 9 pm and featured mumbled responses almost immediately, that they spent last night updating their LinkedIn profiles 'just in case,' Politico reported. 

There was an organized effort to circle the wagons, with Pennsylvania’s telegenic Gov. Josh Shapiro taking to the airwaves hours after Joe Biden’s debate flop to tell members of his party to ‘stop worrying.’

Shapiro, 51, appeared as a Biden campaign surrogate after key political operatives hit the panic button after the president’s halting performance and influential columnist Tom Friedman called for Biden’s performance ‘heartbreaking’ and said he had ‘no business running for reelection.’

‘I would say to all those folks that are out there worrying right now? Start working and stop worrying,’ he told CNN. He acknowledged Biden had a ‘bad night’ and said the campaign needed a ‘crisper message.’

Former Obama political advisor David Axelrod, among those who raised doubts about Biden’s reelection drive months ago, continued to raise concerns.

‘It is not easy. President is the guy who holds the cards here. If he wants to be the nominee and continue to be the nominee, he’ll be the nominee.

Then he added, ‘Perhaps he’ll decide that the patriotic thing to do is to step aside.’

Joining the pushback was Pennsylavania Sen. John Fetterman, who told fellow Democrats to ‘chill the f*** out’ amid the panic.

Former Sec. of State Hillary Clinton was forced to remind Democrats that the ‘choice in this election remains very simple’ and ‘I’ll be voting for Biden.’

Obama’s post-presidential operation batted down a rumor posted online that he was headed to the White House to intervene.

Among the former White House aides raising the alarm is Jon Favreau, who helped pen many of Obama’s memorable campaign and White House speeches.

‘Obviously that debate was a f***ing disaster,’ he said on his joint Pod Save America podcast. ‘We have to beat Donald Trump. We have to have a nominee who can do that. And since we haven't had the convention yet, it would be absurd if Democrats didn't at least have a serious discussion about whether Joe Biden - who's a wonderful human being and has been a great president - is up for the job,’ he said.

Amid the turmoil, Biden's top campaign officials Julie Chavez Rodriguez and Quentin Fulks tried to reassure donors, the Washington reporters, acknowledging that Biden wasn't at his best but insisting he can still win.