About two years before he launched a campaign to unseat President Joe Biden, Rep. Dean Phillips (D-MN) was anxious to win something else from his future opponent: his attention.
In November 2021, Biden traveled to the town of Rosemount, Minnesota—just south of St. Paul—for one of his first events touting the $1 trillion Bipartisan Infrastructure Law he had just signed.
Traveling with Biden were Rep. Angie Craig (D-MN), who represents Rosemount, Rep. Betty McCollum (D-MN), who represents St. Paul, as well as the state’s two U.S. senators, Amy Klobuchar and Tina Smith. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona was also on board.
ADVERTISEMENT
Phillips, who represents the western Minneapolis suburbs, did not travel to Minnesota with Biden, but was insistent on flying back to Washington with the president.
Given how precious and tightly allocated seats are on Air Force One, Phillips’ demand was brazen enough, considering he had no formal role in the Minnesota event. But it was nothing compared to what transpired on board, according to three sources who were present and were granted anonymity to describe the scene to The Daily Beast.
“We got on the plane and it was some of the worst behavior I have ever seen,” said one person. “It was horrendous.”
For one, the Minnesota congressman spent much of the flight in the guest cabin snapping selfies—a major faux pas on the presidential plane. Due to security concerns, passengers’ ability to take photos is strictly regulated to certain parts of the cabin at certain times.
It was not long before Phillips discovered how to use the in-flight phones on the plane. According to these sources, he began dialing relatives so he could put them on the phone with the commander-in-chief—not just once, but multiple times—even interrupting Biden during his conversations with other passengers to ask if he would speak with so-and-so.
“Everyone was mortified,” said a passenger. “You know, people are giving each other looks—‘What the hell was that?’”
Ultimately, that passenger texted someone else to see if they could get the president out of the guest cabin and back to his own cabin, worried that Phillips was going to keep Biden stuck taking calls.
A spokesperson for Phillips did not respond to a request for comment.
To those who witnessed or heard about Phillips’ antics, it was clear he was excited to be with the president—perhaps too excited. During his time in Congress, the Minnesotan had been a staunch supporter of the president and his agenda, which mirrored Phillips’ center-left politics and those of Minnesota’s 3rd Congressional District.
But the episode is stark in retrospect, as Phillips prepares to officially kick off his primary challenge to Biden on Friday in New Hampshire, where he will formally sign the paperwork to compete in the state’s primary election.
For months, Phillips has been teasing the possibility of a primary challenge, arguing that the 80-year-old incumbent is too old, too unpopular, to win a rematch with former President Donald Trump in 2024. He has said “American democracy is made stronger by competition” and expressed his belief that the country and party need new leaders. (No Democratic president has faced a serious primary challenge since Jimmy Carter in 1980.)
The scion of a Minnesota liquor-distilling fortune who launched the successful Talenti gelato brand, Phillips blew out a Republican incumbent in 2018 after running a savvy and sophisticated campaign. Worth many millions of dollars, Phillips could easily self-fund his campaign for at least some amount of time.
Still, Phillips isn’t expected to be a serious obstacle for Biden to win the party nomination. In New Hampshire, he is competing in an unsanctioned primary, which offers no delegate prize and is taking place as a protest to the national party’s decision to shuffle the traditional order of early primary states. He also missed the deadline to qualify for the ballot in Nevada, a key early state with actual delegates at stake.
Even if Phillips’ path to actually beating Biden is slim or non-existent, his ability to damage the incumbent ahead of the general election is very real. It’s just one of the reasons why the resounding reaction to Phillips’ bid, from allies in Minnesota to colleagues on Capitol Hill, has been disbelief, disappointment, and a touch of derision.
“He’s decided to spend all his political capital on this fool’s errand, wild goose chase—it doesn’t make a lot of sense to me,” said Ken Martin, the chairman of the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, who is a friend of Phillips and recruited him to run in 2018.
“As far as I can tell, there’s no one in Minnesota, including in his own district, that’s excited about the prospect of him running for president,” said Martin. “If it’s someone having a midlife crisis—most people having a midlife crisis would go buy a new sports car.”
Some believe Phillips is genuine in his belief that Biden would lose to Trump and that the party needs new leaders. While there is very little appetite among Democratic officials, activists, and many voters for a bruising primary, public polling has shown clear concerns among the party’s voters over Biden’s age. Indeed, as a candidate in 2020, Biden framed himself as a “bridge” to a new generation of leaders.
At this point, however, very few Democrats see Phillips’ primary challenge as the answer to those concerns. In some corners, even among former allies, his bid is seen as a vanity project or a bid for media attention and national recognition.
Even for a politician, Phillips is considered by some to be unusually hungry for the spotlight, sometimes at the expense of his party’s broader priorities.
Ahead of the 2022 midterm elections—in which Democrats were tasked with defending a five-seat majority under daunting conditions—Phillips often spoke to the press to criticize the party’s tone and tactics.
Tim Persico, who was the DCCC’s executive director in 2022, told The Daily Beast that Phillips never shared his criticism privately with the organization.
“We had everything you could imagine—retirements, all this crazy shit—going against us, and this guy was not only never helpful, but always one of the first people, if not the first, to shit on us publicly, not privately,” said Persico.
Adding to the frustration for the DCCC, Phillips delayed paying the customary member dues to the organization—$200,000 per election cycle—until it was in his personal interest to do so.
According to Persico, Phillips only wrote the check a month before election day, after several of his colleagues—depending on DCCC cash to win difficult races—said they would not support Phillips’ bid for a junior Democratic leadership post unless he paid his dues. Ultimately, Phillips won that leadership office, though Democrats narrowly lost the House. Last month, he resigned the position amid internal backlash to his Biden criticism.
In another recent instance of no-chill, Phillips’ thirst for the spotlight rubbed Minnesota colleagues the wrong way.
In May, the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party held its annual Humphrey-Mondale Dinner in Minneapolis, its most important event and fundraiser of the year. The keynote speaker was Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), and several members of the Minnesota congressional delegation expressed interest in giving the speech introducing Jeffries at the dinner.
According to a source familiar with the event, Phillips had worked ahead of time to secure that prime speaking slot—before others were aware Jeffries was coming—and it was understood that Phillips’ hosting of a Democratic fundraiser with Jeffries the next day was a big reason why. “It’s indicative of Dean being, like, Dean first,” said the source. (Like every other major Democrat, Jeffries has endorsed Biden.)
If Phillips wasn’t always a team player with fellow Democrats, he at least was understood to be one for Biden in Congress. Although he has been a member of the bipartisan, centrist Problem Solvers Caucus, Phillips has never been among the lawmakers in his party who have threatened to take down key bills during their run in the majority.
According to FiveThirtyEight’s vote tracker, Phillips has voted with Biden’s agenda 100 percent of the time.
Even if the congressman had not elbowed for space on Air Force One and spent his flight trying to snap photos with Biden and get relatives on the phone with him, Democrats like Martin, the DFL chairman, believe that Phillips’ challenge to the president is built on a suspect foundation.
“I never heard him critique the president, which I think makes it a harder job,” Martin said. “If you’re running against someone—what’s the rap on Joe Biden? His age? He can’t change his age. And he has a record, President Biden and Vice President Harris have a remarkable record.”
“It’s still surprising to a number of folks, myself included,” Martin said, “that he’s decided to embark on this.”
