It’s starting to get lonely in the White House family quarters, as the usual gaggle of political class hangers-on are signaling that they are no longer on Team Biden. And it’s time for him to shape up or ship out.  UPenn “Professor” Joe and University of Delaware “Doctor” Jill Biden are seeing signs from multiple directions that the defenders they thought would be with them through thick and thin want them to leave the presidency without running for re-election.

If you want to know what the old school consultant class, the journeymen operatives that have directed Democrat campaigns for the past generation, are thinking David Gergen is a pretty reliable weathervane, blowing with the winds. And he is warning the Bidens that Joe is going to get “creamed.”

CNN screengrab via Mediaite

Kipp Jones of Mediaite writes on Gergen’s appearance on CNN Friday:

Former Clinton administration adviser David Gergen believes President Joe Biden’s handling of classified documents risks doing very real damage to him.

On CNN’s AC360, host Anderson Cooper welcomed the veteran political operative on to discuss the issue. Cooper mentioned the potential “political fallout” of consistent revelations more of documents being found in locations Biden used after his time as vice president.

“How big a mess is this for the Biden administration?” Cooper asked.

Gergen responded, “It’s very, very big. Not legally but politically, it’s a very, very big deal.”

Gergen, naturally, is commenting on the political angle.  For the legal/prosecutorial angle on Biden’s situation, Robert Mueller’s “pit bull” (per the New York Times) is also warning Joe.

Gergen continued

This is a president that was marching upward for the first time in his presidency. He got his numbers up. People are feeling better about the economy. There are all sorts of reasons to believe that he can now present himself–the fears that people like me have about how old he is and can he govern well? Those fears would be dissipated if he were able to stay on that track.

Gergen called the classified documents reporting a “gigantic story” and questioned why the president’s team did not make more of an attempt to get ahead of it.

“The Biden people, they may be making a big mistake, Anderson,” Gergen said. “I may be wrong about this. They’ve done a wonderful job being cooperative with the government, and they’ve done it by the books. I don’t think sitting there hunkering down now, just acting like it’s not out there is good. They’re going to get creamed doing that.”

Of course, this could be interpreted as advice to Biden to be more forthcoming. But of course, as any criminal defense attorney will tell a client under investigation by a federal prosecutor, the less you say, the better. Answer direct questions, but only the questions asked, and with the minimum number of words necessary to be responsive. See also:

Mueller’s pit bull Andrew Weissmann is greasing the skids under Biden

UPDATE: Adam Schiff this morning joined the crew warning Biden. Via Stephen Neukam of The Hill:

Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) said Congress could not “exclude the possibility” that national security was jeopardized by the handling of President Biden’s classified documents, which are now at the center of a Department of Justice probe.

“I don’t think we can exclude the possibility without knowing more of the facts,” Schiff said on ABC’s “This Week” in an interview with Jonathan Karl. “I’d like to know what these documents were, I’d like to know what the (special counsel’s) assessment is.”