Chuck Todd reveals 'senior' cabinet secretary told him in 2022 Biden 'can't run again like this'

Moderator Chuck Todd appears on his final show as chair of "Meet the Press" in Washington, D.C. Sunday, Sep. 10, 2023. -- (Photo by: William B. Plowman/NBC via Getty Images)

NBC News chief political analyst Chuck Todd claimed on Wednesday a senior cabinet secretary told him in 2022 that Biden couldn’t run again.

The former "Meet the Press" host discussed dwindling confidence in Biden’s campaign on his podcast "The Chuck Toddcast" with Politico columnist Jonathan Martin. While floating potential exit paths for Biden to step down, both criticized Democratic Party members for refusing to publicly voice their concerns.

"The politicians of the Democratic Party in the last few days have shown that a lot of them don’t have the courage of their convictions. They simply aren’t going to stand up and say in public what they’ve been telling folks like us in private for years. This is not a new story," Martin said.

Todd recounted, "I had a cabinet secretary two years ago, two years ago, out of the blue asked me, ‘Do you really think he’s gonna? He can’t run again like this.’ And I said, ‘Well, you have more action with him than I do.’ And they said, ‘I don’t have a lot of interaction with him.’ This is a pretty senior cabinet secretary. This was two years ago." 

He added, "It’s the classic open secret, the nonversation. It’s the story everybody knows, and that everybody was afraid to talk about."