Democratic lawmakers join calls for Joe Biden to step aside
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Prominent House Democrats joined calls for Joe Biden to drop out of the election race over the weekend, even as the president stepped up campaigning to convince voters and his own party that he was fit for office.
Biden made two campaign stops on Sunday in Pennsylvania, a state he almost certainly needs to win to retain control of the White House in November.
Meanwhile, more Democrats called for the president to end his campaign at a virtual meeting called by Hakeem Jeffries, the top Democrat in the House of Representatives.
One Democratic lawmaker said seven House members called for Biden to drop his campaign during the call on Sunday. The representatives were Jerry Nadler, Adam Smith, Jim Himes, Mark Takano, Don Beyer, Jamie Raskin and Joe Morelle.
Himes, the top Democrat on the House intelligence committee, argued that if Biden remained the presidential nominee, the party would lose the White House, Senate and House, according to a person familiar with the matter.
The seven declined or did not respond to requests for comment. After the details of the private call leaked to the media, Beyer posted on X: “I support the Biden-Harris ticket, and look forward to helping defeat Donald Trump in November.”
Biden has been seeking to calm growing alarm among Democrats panicked by the 81-year-old’s shaky debate performance last month.
One House Democrat said the coming week would be instrumental in determining whether there would be strong congressional pressure on Biden to exit the presidential race.
“This week is key,” they said. “After Tuesday morning’s House Democratic Caucus meeting we will know if there will be a push by members to get Biden to step down, or not.”
The president’s appearances at a Black church in Philadelphia and a union event in Harrisburg on Sunday, as well as a TV interview on Friday night, did little to assuage concerns about his age and mental acuity.
On Sunday, Chris Murphy, a Democratic senator from Connecticut, told CNN that Biden needed to do more to convince voters. “This week is going to be absolutely critical. I think the president needs to do more,” Murphy said. “The clock is ticking.”
Many Democratic lawmakers, party operatives and influential donors have privately called for Biden to end his re-election campaign after the disastrous debate, and pressure is likely to grow this week as lawmakers return from a brief recess.
Speaking from printed remarks on Sunday afternoon at Mt Airy Church of God in Christ in Philadelphia, Biden told the congregation that his goal was to “unite America again”.
“I know I look like I’m 40 years old, but I’ve been around a little bit,” Biden joked. “I’ve been doing this a long time and I — honest to God — have never been more optimistic about America’s future if we stick together, I really mean it.”
Later that afternoon in Harrisburg, Biden spoke without teleprompters to tell a crowd at a union event that he was “the most pro-union president in American history”.
Signalling that Biden’s pace was not about to slow, White House officials said the president would visit Michigan in the coming week followed by stops in Austin, Texas, and Las Vegas, Nevada.
His campaign could gain some comfort from a poll out over the weekend showing he leads Trump in the battleground states of Michigan and Wisconsin. The candidates are tied in Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, and North Carolina, but the president remains behind in Pennsylvania.
Congressman Adam Schiff of California said on NBC on Sunday that Biden’s debate performance “rightfully raised questions among the American people about whether the president has the vigour to defeat Donald Trump. And this is an existential race.”
“Given Joe Biden’s incredible record, given Donald Trump’s terrible record, he should be mopping the floor with Donald Trump. Joe Biden is running against a criminal. It should not be even close, and there’s only one reason it is close. And that’s the president’s age.”
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In an opinion piece for CNN over the weekend, David Axelrod, the architect of Barack Obama’s successful 2008 presidential campaign, warned: “At this rate, Biden is likely headed for a landslide defeat to a lawless and unpopular former president.”
“Denial. Delusion. Defiance,” he added.
But some lawmakers were still publicly supporting Biden over the weekend, including influential South Carolina Democratic congressman Jim Clyburn and progressive favourite senator Bernie Sanders.
“What we are talking about now is not a Grammy award contest for best singer,” said Sanders on CBS’s Face the Nation.
“Biden is old. He’s not as articulate as he once was. I wish he could jump up the steps on Air Force One. He can’t. What we have got to focus on is policy.”
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