President Joe Biden has privately told a key ally that he is considering dropping out of the presidential race, a shocking admission that highlights the deplorable state of his candidacy.
Biden, coming off a disastrous debate last week, admitted he has only this weekend to convince voters he is mentally up to the task.
He will be in Madison, Wisconsin, on Friday, where he will sit down for an interview with ABC News. He will travel to Pennsylvania on Sunday.
“He knows that if he does two more events like this, we’ll be in a different situation by the end of the weekend,” the ally told The New York Times.
The White House strongly denies this.
“That claim is absolutely false. If the New York Times had given us more than 7 minutes to comment, we would have told them,” Andrew Bates, deputy White House press secretary, wrote on X.
Biden called a campaign rally on Wednesday to give them a pep talk and tell them he is staying in the race and going to win.
“Let me say this as clearly as I can, as simply and directly as I can: I’m running… nobody is pushing me out. I’m not going away. I’m in this race until the end and we’re going to win,” he said, according to reports.
If Biden leaves the race with Donald Trump, Vice President Kamala Harris would be seen as the favorite to replace him. Biden and Harris had lunch at the White House on Wednesday.
Democrats fear Biden can no longer beat Trump in November. Even Biden aides needed reassurance, as more than two dozen lawmakers have expressed doubts about the president’s eligibility.
President Joe Biden has privately told a key ally that he is considering whether or not to withdraw from the presidential race
Reports are mounting that Biden is eyeing the exit door, as donors, lawmakers and top party officials worry the president is not ready to campaign. There is also frustration that Biden is waiting too long to get back out there and show himself as a strong, energetic leader.
A major donor said TMZ that it is “only a matter of time” before Biden withdraws.
Another ally told CNN that Biden realizes the next few days are critical to whether he can salvage his candidacy, noting that he would have to accept: “It’s just not working.”
“He sees the moment. He has clear eyes,” the person said.
“What should happen is the polls should plummet, the fundraising should dry up, the interviews should go badly,” the person said. “He’s not aware of it.”
The White House is struggling to calm the storm of outrage over Biden’s debate performance, with Democratic lawmakers calling on the president to withdraw from the race and White House staff “freaking out.”
White House Chief of Staff Jeff Zients held a general meeting at 12:30 p.m. Wednesday to cheer up the disillusioned staff and assure them that Biden remains the nominee.
During the call, he acknowledged that Biden did not perform well in last week’s debates, but he told his staff that he is a “great president” and urged them to “stick together.”
“He didn’t have a great night, but that was one night and we all know he’s a great president,” Zients said, according to sources.
He made three key points: keep your heads down and stay committed to the American people as the campaign handles the election; keep your heads up, because the administration has accomplished so much; and stick together.
The conversation lasted about 10 minutes. Zients did not answer questions but said concerned staffers should email him. He repeated Biden’s quote that if you get knocked down, you get back up.
“That’s what he’s doing and that’s what we all need to do: follow the president’s example,” he said.
Additionally, Biden’s campaign sent a memo to all staff showing internal polls from key states showing Biden down just half a point as a result of his debate fumbles.
This move was made to prevent the polls from delivering bad news for the president.
“There will be some polling today and we want you all to hear from us what we know internally and what we expect externally,” the memo, obtained by Politicsit says. ‘Polls are a snapshot in time, and we all need to expect that they will continue to fluctuate. It will take weeks, not days, to get a full picture of the race.’
Vice President Kamala Harris is said to be the favorite to replace Biden if he withdraws
The White House is trying to calm staff fears after President Joe Biden’s debate performance — above Biden with his deputy chief of staff Bruce Reed, senior adviser Mike Donilon and deputy chief of staff Annie Tomasini
While efforts are being made to calm the internal unrest, a major outreach operation is currently underway to quell the growing calls for Biden to be replaced.
The president has been reaching out to lawmakers by phone to shore up his support on Capitol Hill amid concerns that Republicans could take control of the House and Senate, along with the White House, in the upcoming elections, giving them unchecked power to run the country.
Biden will also meet with governors on Wednesday evening as he and his team work to prevent further defections.
Meanwhile, Jill Biden has been sent to the swing states of Pennsylvania and Michigan to promote Biden’s performance in the White House as polls show him trailing Donald Trump.
The effort comes amid ongoing questions about Biden’s mental capacity to handle the presidency and speculation about who could replace him as the Democratic presidential nominee.
“Everyone is in complete panic,” an official said Axios.
But there seems to be a reason for the panic.
A series of private polls conducted by a pro-Biden super PAC showed the president losing ground — about two points — in all of the key swing states, Puck News reported.
Biden was now also behind in New Mexico, New Hampshire and Virginia, three states that were thought to be safely Democratic.
Biden trails Donald Trump in the Five Thirty-Eight polling average for the presidential race.
Democrats keep their distance.
Sen. Tammy Baldwin, who is seeking re-election in Wisconsin, announced Tuesday morning that she will not be on stage with Biden on Friday when he campaigns in her hometown of Madison.
Many Democrats fear the president is moving too slowly to calm panic about his candidacy and mental fitness.
White House Chief of Staff Jeff Zients will hold a meeting with all staff on Wednesday
Donald Trump and Joe Biden during last week’s debate, with Biden botching his answers
There is also talk of a looming Democratic uprising in the House of Representatives.
Jared Golden of Maine, Lloyd Doggett of Texas and Marie Gluesenkamp Perez of Washington state all called on Biden to withdraw or said they believed he would lose to Trump on Tuesday.
These defectors come on top of the 25 House members — commonly referred to as “frontliners” because of their status as moderates in swing districts — who now want to make a definitive break with Biden.
Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi highlighted Biden’s numerous legislative accomplishments during an interview with MSNBC on Tuesday, but said it was legitimate to ask whether his debate performance was a one-off or a broader health issue. She said Trump should face the same scrutiny.
“I think it’s a legitimate question to say, ‘Is this an episode or is this a condition?’ And so when people ask that question, that’s legitimate, of both candidates,” Pelosi said.
Biden, speaking without a teleprompter at a campaign rally in Virginia on Tuesday night, attributed his performance to a lack of sleep and noted that he had made two international trips in the run-up to the debate.
“The fact is I wasn’t very smart, you know. I decided to travel around the world a couple of times, travel through 100 time zones … for … the debate. I didn’t listen to my staff and came back and almost fell asleep on the podium,” he said. “That’s not an excuse, but it’s an explanation.”
He was in France for the 85th anniversary of D-Day and then in Italy for the G7.
But he left out the seven days he spent at Camp David before his showdown with Trump, spending the week with aides preparing for the debate.
Biden, however, rarely started before 11 a.m. and took a nap in the afternoon, the New York Times reported.
Some Democrats suggested that Biden should think about the future of the party as a whole.
“He has to be honest with himself,” moderate Democratic Rep. Mike Quigley of Illinois told CNN on Tuesday.
“It’s his decision. I just want him to realize right now how much of an impact it has, not just on his race, but on all the other races coming up in November.”
And Rep. Jim Clyburn of South Carolina, whose support for Biden in 2020 made him a presidential candidate, told MSNBC he still wanted a presidential ticket with Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.
But then he announced who he would support if Biden withdrew from the race.
“I will support her if he withdraws,” Clyburn said of Harris.