WASHINGTON – While President Joe Biden was out of sight at Camp David on Sunday, spending time with family, prominent Democrats gathered with a public show of unwavering support for his campaign following his unstable debate performance It is increasing anxiety about whether he should stay in the race for the White House.
“I don’t believe Joe Biden has any trouble leading over the next four years,” said a close ally, Democratic Rep. James Clyburn of South Carolina. “Joe Biden should continue running on his record.”
Biden’s allies covered Sunday’s talk shows and admitted that the president’s debate performance against Republican Donald Trump on Thursday night ranged from subpar to poor. They encouraged voters to see beyond the moment, to look at Biden’s long-term record and to focus on Trump’s numerous falsehoods during the 90-minute debate.
However, on a private level, Biden’s campaign has worked to quell concerns about the CNN debate, where Biden appeared hoarse and at times unable to finish his sentences. The campaign has spent the days since then working to keep donors and surrogates on board.
After a fundraiser in New York on Saturday, Biden traveled with his family to Camp David, the presidential retreat outside Washington. The previously planned trip was also being used to take family photos for the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in August.
Even before the debate, the Democratic president’s age of 81 was already a responsibility to voters, and the prime-time showdown seemed to reinforce the public’s deep concerns in light of perhaps the biggest audience he will gain in the four months leading up to election day. CNN said more than 51 million people watched the debate.
Senator Rafael Warnock, a Democratic and Baptist minister from Georgia, said there were “more than a few Sundays when I wished I had preached a better sermon,” relating the experience to Biden’s debate performance.
“But after the sermon was over, my job was to embody the message, to show up for the people I serve. And that’s what Joe Biden has done his entire life,” Warnock said, echoing the message from other supporters that Biden had a bad debate but a lifetime of good governance.
Warnock, like Clyburn and others, focused on Trump’s many falsehoods during the debate – falsehoods that Biden and the debate moderators often failed to fact-check on stage – including about the January 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol by supporters of Trump, immigration and the outcome of the 2020 elections.
“Every time his mouth moved, he was lying,” Warnock said of Trump.
Trump ally Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., sidestepped questions about Trump’s false claims and praised Trump’s performance while accusing the national media of hiding a debilitating condition.
Trump “was strong. He was clear. He was consistent,” Graham said.
He called Biden “compromised” and said “the media is covering up” it.
Behind closed doors, concern was simmering among some Democrats that the Biden campaign and the Democratic National Committee were not taking the impact of Biden’s performance seriously enough.
DNC Chairman Jaime Harrison and Biden campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez held a call Saturday afternoon with dozens of committee members across the country — a group of some of the party’s most influential members — where offered an optimistic assessment of the path forward and no opportunity for others on the call to respond with questions.
Several committee members present on the call, most granted anonymity to speak about the private discussion, described feeling like they were being asked to ignore a serious situation.
“There were a number of things that could have been said when addressing the situation. But we didn’t achieve that. We were being gaslit,” said Joe Salazar, a DNC member-elect from Colorado who was on the call.
Advocates like Clyburn, whose support was critical to Biden’s victory in the 2020 South Carolina primary, pointed to the president’s rally in North Carolina on Friday, when he appeared energized and excited, a sharp pivot from the night before. .
“I know I’m not a young man — to state the obvious,” Biden said at the rally. “Guys, I don’t walk as easily as I used to. I don’t speak as well as I used to. I don’t debate as well as I used to.”
“But I know what I know: I know how to tell the truth. I know right from wrong. And I know how to do this work. I know how to do things. And I know as millions of Americans know: When you get knocked down, you get back up,” he said to applause.
Biden’s team reported that the campaign has amassed more than $33 million as of Thursday, $26 million coming from smaller dollar donations, including about half from first-time donors this cycle. The campaign said Thursday was its best “grassroots” fundraising day, while Friday, the day after the debate, was its second-best.
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.
Clyburn and Graham were on CNN’s “State of the Union” and Warnock appeared on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
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Beaumont reported from Des Moines, Iowa. Associated Press writers Matthew Daly, Zeke Miller and Seung Min Kim contributed to this report.
