WASHINGTON – President Joe Biden worked vigorously on Friday to calm Democratic anxieties your shaky showing in your debate with former President Donald Trump, as elected members of his party closed ranks around him in an effort to end talk of his replacement at the top of the ticket.
Biden’s halting delivery and meandering comments, especially early in the debate, fueled concerns even from members of his own party that, at 81, he will not be up to the task of leading the country for another four years. It created a moment of crisis for Biden’s campaign and his presidency, as members of his party flirted with potential replacements and donors and supporters could not contain their concern about his performance against Trump.
Biden appeared to acknowledge the criticism during a rally in Raleigh, North Carolina, saying “I don’t debate as well as I used to.” But he added: “I know how to do this job. I know how to get things done.” Speaking for 18 minutes, Biden seemed much more animated than the night before, as he criticized Trump for his “lies” and for waging a campaign aimed at “revenge and retribution”.
“The choice in this election is simple,” Biden said. “Donald Trump will destroy our democracy. I will defend him.”
He added, alluding to his candidacy: “When you get knocked down, you get back up.”
Even before the debate, Biden’s age was an issue for voters, and Thursday night’s showdown seemed to reinforce the public’s deep concerns in the face of perhaps the biggest audience he will win in the four months until Election Day.
Privately, his campaign worked to quell concerns and keep donors and surrogates on board. Democratic lawmakers on Friday acknowledged Biden’s poor performance but tried to stop talking about replacing him as their standard-bearer and instead shifted focus to Trump’s attacks and falsehoods.
“Well, the president didn’t have a good night, but neither did Donald Trump, with lie after lie and his bleak vision for America,” North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper told The Associated Press on Friday, hours before introducing the president in Raleigh. “We cannot send Donald Trump back to the White House. He is an existential threat to our nation.”
Former President Barack Obama supported his former vice president, posting on X that “Bad debate nights happen.” Alluding to his poor performance in the first debate of his 2012 re-election campaign, Obama continued: “Trust me, I know. this election is still a choice between someone who has fought for ordinary people his entire life and someone who only cares about himself.”
He added: “Last night didn’t change that and that’s why there’s so much at stake in November.”
House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries responded with a definitive “no” when asked Friday whether Biden should step aside.
Rep. Ritchie Torres, D-N.Y., admitted he “had to take a few more antidepressants than usual” after Biden’s debate airing.
But he added that “a Donald Trump presidency would cause me much more discomfort than a Joe Biden debate performance.”
Biden’s campaign called the Raleigh event the largest rally of his re-election bid in the state. Trump won by the narrowest of margins in 2020. He then traveled to New York for a weekend of big-dollar fundraising that his campaign needs now more than ever.
Biden’s campaign announced that it raised $14 million on the day of the debate and the morning after, while the Trump campaign said it raised more than $8 million from the start of the debate until the end of the night.
Vice President Kamala Harris, who Biden’s campaign sent to defend his performance, tried to reassure Biden supporters at a rally in Las Vegas on Friday, saying: “This race will not be decided one night in June.
“This race will be decided by you. For us,” she said. “Who sits in the White House next year will be determined by what we do together over the next 130 days.”
Biden campaign communications director Michael Tyler said there hasn’t been “any” internal talk about Biden leaving, though he also acknowledged the president had a “bad night” on stage.
Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, D-Mo., said he could barely sleep because of the number of phone calls he received after Biden had a “horrible” debate performance.
“People were just worried. And I told everyone that being worried is healthy, overreacting is dangerous,” Cleaver said.
Rep. James Clyburn, a South Carolina Democrat whose support in that state helped Biden secure the Democratic nomination four years ago, said he would likely speak to Biden later on Friday and that his message would be simple: “Stay the course.” ”.
Biden and his team have long bet that voters would ignore their concerns about his age and unpopularity when faced at the polls with a choice between the president and Trump. Despite their concerns about Biden’s performance, they took comfort in the fact that Trump did little to expand his appeal to voters on Thursday.
Polls CNN It is 538/Ipsos conducted shortly after the debate found that most debate watchers thought Trump outperformed Biden. But the two men’s favorability ratings remained largely unchanged, as they did in the aftermath of Trump’s conviction.
Democrats seized on Trump’s equivocations about whether he would accept the will of voters this time, his refusal to condemn the rioters who stormed the Capitol on January 6, 2021, trying to reverse his 2020 loss to Biden, and his embrace of conservative- leaning toward overturning the Roe v. Wade for the Supreme Court, which legalized abortion across the country.
But Biden fumbled on abortion rights, one of the most important issues for Democrats in this year’s election. He was unable to explain Roe v. Wade, the landmark Supreme Court ruling that legalized abortion nationwide. A conservative Supreme Court with three Trump-appointed justices overturned Roe two years ago.
As elected Democrats publicly rallied behind Biden, donors and party operatives shared panicked texts and phone calls Thursday night and Friday, expressing their concern that Biden’s performance was so poor that he may be ineligible this fall.
Among the few Democratic public voices calling for Biden to resign was congressional candidate Nancy Boyda in Kansas, who broke with her party’s majority and called on Biden to suspend his campaign and retire at the end of his current term.
But there were no immediate signs of organized efforts among donors, his campaign leadership or the Democratic National Committee to convince the president to resign, according to interviews with several people who spoke on condition of anonymity to share sensitive conversations.
Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat often mentioned as a 2028 candidate and speculated as a potential Biden replacement, released a statement supporting him on Friday.
“The difference between Joe Biden’s vision of ensuring everyone in America has a fair chance and Donald Trump’s dangerous, self-serving plans will only become clearer as we move into November,” she said.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom also dismissed questions about whether he would consider replacing Biden, telling reporters, “I will never turn my back on him.”
Under current Democratic Party rules, it would be difficult, if not impossible, to replace Biden as the party’s nominee without his cooperation or without party officials being willing to rewrite the rules at the August national convention.
Trump was scheduled to hold a rally Friday afternoon in Chesapeake, Virginia, a former battleground that has shifted toward Democrats in recent years but which his aides believe could swing toward Republicans in November.
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Superville reported from Raleigh, North Carolina; Price from Norfolk, Virginia; People of Atlanta. AP reporters Stephen Groves, Brian Slodysko, Colleen Long and Farnoush Amiri in Washington, John Hanna in Topeka, Kansas, Gary D. Robertson in Raleigh, JJ Cooper in Las Vegas, Joey Cappelletti in Lansing, Michigan and Bill Barrow in Atlanta contributed .
