THE INSIDERS

The three men at the core of Biden's brain trust

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Multiple times each day, US President Joe Biden dials up Mr Mike Donilon, a close adviser since the 1980s, to chew on the latest polls and headlines.

"What is your instinct? What do you think?" Mr Biden will ask Mr Donilon, who recently left the White House for the campaign's Delaware headquarters.

Once a week, Mr Biden summons Mr Ron Klain, his former chief of staff, to workshop the best attacks to use against former president Donald Trump as the presidential debates draw closer.

When he leaves for Delaware on weekends, Mr Biden seeks out Mr Ted Kaufman, a confidant who represents the President's ties to the state that introduced him to the national stage more than half a century ago. It was Mr Kaufman who was brutally direct with Mr Biden when a plagiarism scandal threatened his first campaign for president in 1987.

"There is only one way to stop the sharks," Mr Kaufman told him at the time, "and that is pull out." Mr Biden did.

Interviews with dozens of people close to the President reveal a truth at the heart of Mr Biden's political life: While he is surrounded by a diverse and multi-generational crowd of campaign operatives, policy experts and Cabinet secretaries, he reserves his full trust for a small circle of insiders who are the definition of old school.

The three are at the centre of the Biden world, part of an echo chamber where dissent is rare.

At important moments, each has told the President news he did not want to hear, although not one of them said no when the President was considering whether to run for a second term.

They are also decades older than the young voters who could decide the election, which worries many of the President's allies. Mr Klain is the youngest at 62. Mr Donilon is 65. Mr Kaufman is 85, four years older than Mr Biden.