Hillary Clinton warns mutinous Dems they ‘can’t force Biden out,’ jokes it’s like ‘taking the keys away from older parents’

Hillary Clinton faced a restless crowd of influential Democrats who want President Biden to leave the 2024 race Wednesday night — only for her to warn them it wouldn’t be that simple.

Sources told Page Six the former secretary of state, 76, came armed with humor when she faced tough questions from the “somewhere between anxious and irate” gathering at the city home of venture capital exec Jacqueline Novogratz.

“She made a joke [saying] anyone has been in the situation where you have to take the keys away from older parents,” an insider said.

But the same source added that the ex-senator from New York and 2016 Democratic presidential nominee advised her audience that “you can’t force him out,” and “the only people who could persuade Biden [to exit] are the people closest to him.”

Another source confirmed that Clinton said “it was going to be very hard to convince” the 81-year-old chief executive to step aside.

Clinton also told the crowd that she “certainly” thinks Biden would win re-election against Trump and added that if she were advising a potential replacement, she would tell them not to touch the nomination with a “10-foot pole.”

“Hillary told the crowd, ‘Why would you do that when you could have a clear shot to run your own campaign in 2028?’” said one source, who added that Clinton also mused that “maybe somebody will prove [her] wrong in the next two weeks.”

The ex-first lady also laid out the thorny political issues involving the commitment of delegates and transfer of campaign funds, all of which would make Vice President Kamala Harris the favorite to step in if Biden did exit the race.

“None of them have made the political calculation,” a source said was the thrust of Clinton’s message about non-Harris, post-Biden contenders, “is that how anyone wants to meet America?”

Sources also said that Clinton confirmed to the gathering of about 70 people that she has discussed the commander-in-chief’s future with her husband, former President Bill Clinton, and her ex-boss, Barack Obama.

Page Six hears that guests at at the Acumen CEO’s home included billionaire scion Jonathan Soros, “You’ve Got Mail” actress Meg Ryan, former UBS Global Asset Management CEO Margo Alexander and Iceland President-elect Halla Tómasdóttir — who apparently kept her own counsel throughout the gathering.

Another source tells us that it seemed like “every single person in the room wanted Biden to withdraw” following his ghastly debate performance against former President Donald Trump during last month’s June 27 debate in Atlanta.

But Clinton, one of our spies said, “didn’t cross any lines, never said he should get out of the race. It was more like, ‘You can look at this in several ways.’”

“I would have loved her to say he should go — but she didn’t say that,” another source said of the talk. “She was explaining, ‘here’s one thing that could happen, here’s another thing that could happen.’”

One source added that Clinton outlined Biden’s personal and professional challenges in the past — from family deaths to political setbacks — as an explanation for him running his race to the end.

“She said, ‘This is a person who believes that he has experienced already the worst that life can do to you and has gone through it … how [do] you persuade somebody who believes that about himself and also believes that he did defeat Trump once and can do it again?’”

Novogratz is the sister of longtime Biden supporter and cryptocurrency billionaire Mike Novogratz, who reportedly had been financially backing Rep. Dean Phillips (D-Minn.), Biden’s long-shot primary opponent who had questioned the president’s age and fitness for office throughout the campaign.

Mike told CNBC back in December 2023: “I worked hard in 2020… I think he’s too old. I think Trump is too old, too. We need fresh people.”