WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden is expected to discuss the future of his re-election campaign with his family on Sunday, following a nationally televised debate on Thursday that left many fellow Democrats worried about his ability to defeat former President Donald Trump in November, according to five people familiar with the subject.
Biden’s trip to Camp David was planned before Thursday’s debate. He and first lady Jill Biden are expected to join their children and grandchildren there on Saturday.
So far, top party leaders have offered public support for Biden, including in tweets posted by former presidents Barack Obama It is Bill Clinton. Top congressional Democrats, including Reps. Hakeem Jeffries of New York, Jim Clyburn of South Carolina and Nancy Pelosi of California, have privately expressed concerns about its viability, two sources familiar with those discussions said, though they all publicly support the president.
A Democratic House member who believes Biden should drop out of the race — but has not yet publicly called for it — told NBC News that three colleagues expressed the same sentiment to him during House floor votes on Friday.
At the same time, there is an understanding among top Democrats that Biden should be given space to determine next steps. They believe that only the president, in consultation with his family, can decide whether to move forward or end his campaign early – and that he will not respond well to pressure.
“The decision makers are two people – it’s the president and his wife,” said one of the sources familiar with the discussions, adding: “Anyone who doesn’t understand how deeply personal and family this decision will be has no knowledge about the situation.”
This account of a president and his party in crisis Just over four months before an election they say will determine the fate of democracy, it is drawn from interviews with more than a dozen Democratic officials, operatives, aides and donors. They all spoke on condition of anonymity in order to describe such sensitive issues as whether a sitting president could drop his re-election bid and how he could be replaced at the polls.
Despite delivering a rousing speech at a rally in North Carolina on Friday that calmed some of his allies, Biden was described by a person familiar with his mood as humiliated, lacking confidence and painfully aware that physical images of him in the debate – eyes wide in the distance, mouth agape – will live on beyond his presidency, along with a performance that was at times meandering, incoherent and difficult to listen to.
“It’s a mess,” this person said.
Another person familiar with the dynamics said Biden will ultimately hear from just one adviser.
“The only person who has definitive influence over him is the first lady,” this person said. “If she decides there should be a change of course, there will be a change of course.”
Anita Dunn, one of Biden’s few closest advisers, said on MSNBC’s “The Weekend” on Saturday that Biden had not discussed dropping out of the race with advisers and that internal negotiations had focused on moving forward.
“We had a bad debate,” Dunn said. “What do we do next? You know, the president, above all else, is focused on what do we do next? What do I need to do?
These private discussions between Biden, his family members and his top advisers take place in the context of a reckoning for Democrats, who were shocked both by Biden’s appearance and by how often his line of thinking seemed to deviate. .
His campaign held a conference call Saturday with members of the Democratic National Committee, which a Biden campaign official described as an effort to reassure party officials and demonstrate that his team is communicating with its allies.
“We are driving it,” the official said.
House leaders did not waver publicly, and their aides denied they were expressing doubts behind closed doors.
“Speaker Pelosi has complete confidence in President Biden and looks forward to attending his inauguration on January 20, 2025,” said Ian Krager, spokesman for the former House speaker. “Any suggestion that she engaged in a different course of action is simply not true.”
Christie Stephenson, a spokeswoman for House Minority Leader Jeffries, said her boss “has repeatedly made clear, publicly and privately, that he supports President Joe Biden and the Democratic ticket from top to bottom.”
Clyburn’s office did not respond to a request for comment, but he told reporters Friday that he is still with Biden.
Biden’s top aides and advisers have told his team to stay the course in meetings and discussions. His message, according to a senior administration official: “We will weather the storm, just as we always have.”
Sources described three groups of Democrats: those who will defend Biden under any circumstances, those who are ready to abandon him, and those who are waiting to see what he does — and what his poll numbers will be in the coming days and weeks — before doing so. judgment. It’s the third group that Democrats are monitoring closely.
“Democrats need to take a deep breath and look at the polls, look at the undecided voters,” said a state Democratic Party chairman. “Until I see something different, he is the person who put together this coalition, he is the person who has the record, he is the person who defeated Donald Trump. Until I see something different, he is still the best person to defeat Donald Trump.”
The Biden campaign declined to comment for this article, instead pointing to a memo Saturday from campaign chair Jen O’Malley Dillon that argued Biden can still win, pointing to the more than $27 million they have raised between the day of the debate and Friday night.
Notably, however, O’Malley Dillon nodded to the possibility that there could be some tough elections ahead – but said the blame will fall on the media: “If we see changes in the polls in the coming weeks, it won’t be the first a time when exaggerated media narratives led to temporary dips in the polls.”
Discussions among some Democrats include weighing what the party’s best path to defeating Trump might be — sticking with an 81-year-old incumbent who could have another moment like Thursday night anytime between now and Election Day, or opting by a different candidate. whose path to nomination at next month’s party convention could be a complicated process.
Biden insisted Friday that he will continue to be the party’s standard-bearer in November, telling a crowd at his rally in Virginia: “I wouldn’t be running again if I didn’t believe with all my heart and soul that I can do this job.”
The president has spent much of the past 48 hours attending fundraising events with some of the Democrats most concerned about the impact of his debate performance.
He addressed the issue head-on at an event on Saturday.
“I understand the concern about the debate – I understand,” he added. “I didn’t have a great night.”
Party elites will urge him out of the race only if they determine he is “not viable and negatively impacting the House and Senate races,” said a major donor who is close to both Obama and Biden.
Inherent in the wait-and-see approach is the recognition that there is no clear replacement for Biden and that his departure could trigger a bloody 11th-hour intraparty battle that could allow Trump to cruise to victory.
There is also no viable way to force him off his perch. All but a few delegates to the Democratic convention were elected on a promise to nominate him at the party convention in August. If he decides to run for that nomination, party insiders say, he will get it.
Furthermore, according to a senior Democratic official, the party leadership would have much more control over choosing a replacement if Biden withdrew after receiving the nomination than if he did so before. After a candidate is officially nominated, there is a process for Democratic National Committee members to choose a successor. Biden is the dominant force in the DNC and his preference for a successor would certainly influence it.
If Biden left before then, his delegates could do what he asked them to do — but they wouldn’t be bound in the same way they are now. In this scenario, delegates could nominate anyone and there could be a political fight at the convention.
“We need to have both discipline and emotion,” the senior Democratic official said. “It is not politically smart for Biden to resign.”
This story originally appeared on NBCNews.com read the full story
