The White House insisted on Wednesday that Joe Biden is staying in the election as the presumptive Democratic nominee, while the US president reportedly told his campaign team “I’m in this race to the end” amid mounting pressure for him to step down over concerns he is not up to the job, at 81.
Karine Jean-Pierre, the press secretary, told reporters “the president is not dropping out”, even while he “owns” his dire performance in the first debate of the campaign against presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump last week.
She repeatedly blamed him having a cold, brought on by overly-arduous foreign travel, despite incredulous scoffs and skeptical questions from some reporters at the daily briefing.
Biden separately told staffers on a call, according to multiple reports: “No one is pushing me out” and “I’m not leaving. I’m in this race to the end and we’re going to win.”
He was joined on the call by his vice-president, Kamala Harris, reiterating to staffers that they are in this fight for re-election “together”, according to an Associated Press report. She is seen as a likely substitute if Biden drops out, although several Democratic governors are considered serious rivals in that scenario.
The White House earlier denied a report that Biden is weighing whether his candidacy is still viable, ahead of a key meeting with Democratic governors on Wednesday evening, radio interviews due to air on the Fourth of July holiday and a TV interview with ABC airing in parts on Friday evening and over the weekend as he tries to bolster plummeting confidence.
An ally of the president earlier told the New York Times that the president remained fully committed to his re-election effort, but that he knew his upcoming public appearances would have to be successful ones in order for his candidacy to remain viable.
“He knows if he has two more events like that, we’re in a different place,” the source said, referring to Biden’s disastrous debate performance against Donald Trump last week.
The article was published under the headline “Biden told ally that he is weighing whether to continue in the race”.The senior deputy press secretary and deputy assistant to the president, Andrew Bates, posted that: “That claim is absolutely false.”
The latest Siena College / NYT poll shows Trump has widened his lead on Biden since the TV debate, opening up a 6-point advantage, 49-43%, over Biden among likely voters. Only 49% of Democrats say Biden should remain the nominee.
Later on Wednesday Biden made his first public appearance of the day at a White House ceremony to award posthumous Medals of Honor to two Union soldiers for acts of bravery in the civil war. The president spoke mainly clearly, aided by a teleprompter.
Cracks in support among Democratic leaders had multiplied late Tuesday into Wednesday.
Barack Obama reportedly expressed concerns about Biden’s path to re-election and
House Democrat Jim Clyburn, known as a kingmaker of sorts within the Democratic party, told CNN that the party should hold a “mini-primary” if Biden steps aside, despite supporting his candidacy.
Related: Who could replace Joe Biden? Here are six possibilities
Almost all elected Democrats continue to back Biden in public.
On Tuesday congressman Lloyd Doggett of Texas became the first House Democrat to publicly urge the president to step aside. A second one joined on Wednesday afternoon when Raúl Grijalva of Arizona told the New York Times: “If he’s the candidate, I’m going to support him but I think that this is an opportunity to look elsewhere … What he really needs to do is shoulder the responsibility for keeping that seat – and part of that responsibility is to get out of this race.”
At a Virginia campaign event on Tuesday evening, Biden blamed the debate debacle on his prior international trips, saying: “I wasn’t very smart. I decided to travel around the world a couple times, going through around 100 time zones … before … the debate. Didn’t listen to my staff and came back and nearly fell asleep on stage. That’s no excuse but it is an explanation.”
Obama, who served two terms with Biden as his vice president, has reportedly shared in private with Democratic allies who sought his counsel that Biden was already on a tough road to re-election and that road was now more rocky after the debate, the Washington Post reported late on Tuesday, citing unnamed sources familiar with the former president’s remarks, despite his public support for Biden’s candidacy.
And dozens of House Democrats are considering signing a letter calling for Biden to withdraw from the presidential race, Bloomberg reported, citing an unnamed ‘senior party official’.
A post-debate survey commissioned by Puck news showed that 40% of voters who backed Biden in 2020 now believe he should withdraw. It also showed him now under threat from Trump in states previously considered safe by Democrats, including Virginia, New Mexico and New Hampshire.
Related: James Carville calls on Democratic party to ‘deliver change’ and replace Biden
A Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Tuesday also found that one in three Democrats said Biden should end his re-election campaign.
The former first lady, Michelle Obama, who has never held elected office, also led Trump 50% to 39% in a poll about a hypothetical match-up, Reuters reported.
Also, California congresswoman and former House Speaker, Nancy Pelosi, told MSNBC of Biden’s debate performance – and Trump’s: “I think it’s a legitimate question to say, is this an episode or is this a condition? When people ask that question, it’s completely legitimate – of both candidates.”
Harris is the top alternative to replace Biden if he quits, according to seven senior sources at the Biden campaign, the White House and the Democratic National Committee with knowledge of current discussions on the topic, Reuters reported.
In the Reuters/Ipsos poll published on Tuesday, Harris trailed Trump by one percentage point, a showing as strong as Biden’s, within polling margins.
Democrats have been privately scathing both about the White House’s lack of transparency about the president’s apparent recent decline, and about his failure to rebound fully from the debate. All eyes will now be on the ABC interview.
Two House Democrats, Jared Golden of Maine and Marie Gluesenkamp Perez of Washington, have predicted publicly since the debate that they believed Trump would win November’s election.
Anger has also been voiced at the White House and campaign aides for shielding Biden from public and covering up evidence of his supposedly fading powers amid reports that this has been visible for months.
The presidential physician, Kevin O’Connor, has previously said that Biden is in excellent condition.
Sam Levin and Reuters contributed reporting
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