Twenty-five House Democrats reportedly are planning to call on President Joe Biden to end his re-election campaign in light of his dismal debate performance last week against former President Donald Trump.
They added the caveat that the 81-year-old president need not step aside if he can reassure Americans in the coming days that his face-off with Trump was an outlier episode rather than representative of a serious cognitive condition.
Reuters reported Wednesday, “There are 25 Democratic members of the House of Representatives preparing to call for Biden to step aside if he seems shaky in coming days, according to one House Democratic aide.”
“A second House Democratic aide said moderate House Democrats in competitive districts — often called ‘frontliners’ — were getting hammered with questions in their districts this week,” the report said.
“It looks like the dam has broken,” the second aide said.
During Thursday’s CNN debate, Biden lost his train of thought multiple times and made nonsensical statements at other moments.
One instance that received a lot of media coverage was when the president gave a rambling, incoherent answer about health care, ending with, “We finally beat Medicare.”
BIDEN: “…with the COVID.. excuse me.. dealing with.. everything we have to do with.. look.. if… we finally beat, Medicare.”
TRUMP: “He’s right. He did beat Medicare. He’s destroying Medicare.” pic.twitter.com/jgVCpXUhWZ
— Florida’s Voice (@FLVoiceNews) June 28, 2024
A Yahoo News/YouGov poll conducted after the debate found that 60 percent of those surveyed believe Biden is not fit to serve another term as president, while 24 percent said he is fit and 16 percent said they were not sure.
The poll was taken Friday through Monday among 1,754 U.S. adults, with a margin of error of plus or minus 2.9 percentage points.
Will Biden withdraw from the presidential race?
The New York Times reported Wednesday that Biden “has told a key ally that he knows he may not be able to salvage his candidacy if he cannot convince the public in the coming days that he is up for the job after a disastrous debate performance last week.”
“The president, whom this ally emphasized is still deeply in the fight for re-election, understands that his next few appearances heading into the holiday weekend must go well, particularly an interview scheduled for Friday with George Stephanopoulos of ABC News and campaign stops in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin,” the report said.
The ally said, “He knows if he has two more events like that, we’re in a different place.”
White House spokesman Andrew Bates rebutted the Times report, posting on X, “That claim is absolutely false. If the New York Times had provided us with more than 7 minutes to comment we would have told them so.”
That claim is absolutely false. If the New York Times had provided us with more than 7 minutes to comment we would have told them so. https://t.co/SRTYIVTy7v
— Andrew Bates (@AndrewJBates46) July 3, 2024
According to The Washington Post, Biden, while speaking at a campaign event in Virginia on Tuesday, blamed his bad debate performance on a lack of sleep.
“I wasn’t very smart. I decided to travel around the world a couple times, going through I don’t know how many time zones — for real, I think it was 15 time zones,” the president said.
“I didn’t listen to my staff. And then I came back and nearly fell asleep onstage,” he said. “At any rate, that’s no excuse, but it is an explanation.”
Politico noted Biden’s travel in the weeks before the debate included a trip to France for the 80th anniversary of D-Day, which took place in early June, and then from there on to Italy for the Group of Seven summit on June 12.
He then returned to the U.S. and went to the West Coast for a June 15 fundraiser in Los Angeles.
The president came back to Washington on June 16 and spent the next 11 days preparing for the debate, including six days secluded at Camp David in northern Maryland.
The Times reported that Biden’s schedule at Camp David was light, with his debate practice normally not starting until 11 a.m., and the president was given time to take an afternoon nap.
Bates said that Biden’s day would begin “well before” 11 and included the president getting in some exercise.
A group of Democratic governors is slated to meet with Biden on Wednesday evening at the White House to discuss his candidacy.
ABC News said it had confirmed that “Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, California Gov. Gavin Newsom, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healy, Rhode Island Gov. Dan McKee, and Maryland Gov. Wes Moore are among the governors attending in-person.”
Others — including Arizona’s Katie Hobbs, New Jersey’s Phil Murphy, North Carolina’s Roy Cooper, Pennsylvania’s Josh Shapiro and Washington’s Jay Inslee — will attend the 6:30 p.m. ET meeting virtually, the outlet reported.
