CNN
—
A stunning 24 hours that have shattered the political foundations of Joe Biden’s re-election campaign leaves him facing the most stressful presidential press conference in modern history on Thursday.
The stakes of Biden’s solo appearance at the end of the NATO summit have multiplied by the hour, as his political standing has collapsed at a rapid pace. His supporters, from Congress to Hollywood, have warned that he must step aside for the good of the party and the country, and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has sent a clear signal that a recalcitrant president should reconsider his options.
The rebellion, joined by only a small minority of Democrats in Congress but which appears to run deeper, reflects the fear now growing on Capitol Hill that former President Donald Trump could trigger a Republican landslide that would lead conservatives to a monopoly on power in Congress, the White House and the Supreme Court.
Some Democrats worry that the 81-year-old Biden’s determination to run again, despite the diminished skills revealed by the debate, could endanger the very democracy he says he is trying to save.
The president, who was already in political trouble before the disastrous debate, is determined not to hand the torch to a younger Democrat. But three factors could make his position untenable: a fractured support within his party, a drying up of fundraising and damning polling data. As Biden greeted world leaders at the NATO summit on Wednesday and led talks on how to save Ukraine, the pieces were falling into place to make that fateful trio a reality.
Nothing less than Biden’s hopes of winning a second term will be at stake at this press conference, exactly two weeks after his incoherent and distracted debate performance sent his campaign into freefall. It is the latest in a series of public events that have turned into excruciating examinations of Biden’s health and cognitive abilities, in which the slightest mistake or confusion could trigger a political disaster. Any sign that his reasoning or performance is clouded by age would reinforce the impression of presidential infirmity seared into the national consciousness during the CNN debate and could trigger a stunning Democratic revolt.
The day began with Nancy Pelosi, still one of the party’s top power brokers, contradicting Biden’s insistence that the questions about his dismal debate performance and his nomination were over. Appearing on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” she said it was up to Biden to “decide whether he’s going to run” — comments that everyone in Washington interpreted as a plea for Biden to change his mind. The California Democrat appeared to be offering the president another chance to gracefully change his mind after warning earlier this week, “I’m not going anywhere.”
Throughout the day, lawmakers sent similar signals. Democratic Rep. Ritchie Torres, a member of the Congressional Black Caucus who endorsed Biden, told CNN, “If we’re going to embark on a political suicide mission, then we should at least be honest about it.” His fellow New Yorker, moderate Rep. Pat Ryan, called on Biden to keep his promise to be a bridge to a new generation of leaders. “Trump is an existential threat to American democracy; it is our duty to run the strongest candidate against him. Joe Biden is a patriot, but he is no longer the best candidate to defeat Trump.”
And on Wednesday night, Vermont Sen. Peter Welch became the first Democratic senator to publicly call on Biden to step down. “He saved us from Donald Trump once and wants to do it again. But he needs to reevaluate whether he’s the best candidate to do it. In my view, he’s not,” Welch wrote in a Washington Post op-ed.
Top Biden campaign officials are expected to meet with Democratic senators on Thursday to make the president’s case, but the staffers’ briefing will fall far short of the measures members are demanding to show Biden has the strength to beat Trump.
As recently as Tuesday night, Biden appeared to have managed to slow the momentum that had been weighing on him. But in the past 24 hours, he has rapidly lost ground, and it is becoming difficult to imagine how the party will unite behind him at the Democratic National Convention in August if many lawmakers leave Chicago and head to an election in which they believe their presidential candidate will seal their defeat.
Lawmakers’ concerns are so great because they are listening to voters, reading polling data in their states and concluding that Biden not only cannot win but — as Colorado Sen. Michael Bennet said on CNN Tuesday — could hand Trump a landslide that he could use to implement his authoritarian agenda.
Top Democratic leaders in Congress have yet to say Biden should go. And the president still has his defenders. Sen. Chris Coons of Delaware, a Biden ally and campaign co-chair, told CNN’s Kaitlan Collins on Wednesday: “He will be our nominee at the convention. He will be our nominee in the fall. He will be the next president of the United States.” Sen. John Fetterman, who represents the swing state of Pennsylvania, told CNN’s Erin Burnett that it would be a “disgrace to push aside and push an incredible president” and said he would show up at Thursday’s Senate Democratic meeting with brass knuckles to defend Biden.
But growing frustration and indications that collapsing support for the president could end the party’s hopes in November help explain why Democratic House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries told his members he would convey their concerns to Biden.
Biden’s most scathing defection came from actor and major Democratic donor George Clooney, who appeared at a fundraiser with the president last month. The “Good Night, and Good Luck” director and actor has said he loves Biden and believes in his morals, character and presidency. But he wrote in a New York Times op-ed: “The Joe Biden I was with three weeks ago at the fundraiser was not the ‘big f–ing deal’ Joe Biden of 2010.” Clooney continued: “That wasn’t even the Joe Biden of 2020. That was the same man we all saw in the debate. … We are not going to win in November with this president.”
Clooney’s piece underscores how the Biden situation is not just a boiling political controversy but has become a wrenching human ordeal for the president, who is beloved by many Democrats but whose diminished health and abilities are now becoming the subject of a humiliating debate in the most public way imaginable.
Clooney has close ties to Democratic Party elected officials and donors, so his opinions carry more weight than those of any celebrity. And he’s not the only disgruntled donor. In another sign of danger for Biden’s candidacy, one Democratic strategist told CNN, “Everything is on hold because nobody knows what’s going to happen. Everybody’s in wait-and-see mode,” adding that money was on the back burner and awaiting the outcome of Biden’s press conference and interviews Thursday. The president will sit down with NBC “Nightly News” anchor Lester Holt for an interview that will be taped and aired next Monday, the network said.
Biden has lost ground since the debate in public polls. And Rep. Elissa Slotkin, who is in a tight Senate race in Michigan, told donors on a video call Tuesday that Biden is trailing Trump in private polls in her state, The New York Times reported. If the president can’t win Michigan, as he did in 2020, his path to the 270 electoral votes needed to win the White House becomes negligible.
The growing crisis in the Democratic Party isn’t just hurting Biden’s chances of holding on to the nomination. It’s also providing Trump and Republicans with a never-ending source of attack ads against Biden if he’s confirmed as the nominee. Individual candidates can also expect to be criticized for backing a party figurehead many Democrats have said is unfit to serve a second term that would end when he turns 86. And two weeks of angst over Biden’s age and mental faculties, combined with a clumsy effort at mitigation by the White House and campaign, have taken the pressure off Trump and deprived Democrats of the comparison to the former president’s anarchy and volatility that many initially believed would help Biden hold on to the White House.
Former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, a senior adviser to the Biden campaign, warned that Democrats need to stop bickering and support the president before it’s too late. She told CNN’s Erin Burnett it was “astonishing” that her party was on a “suicide mission” so close to the election.
But as Biden’s political standing continues to deteriorate rapidly, the question becomes how much longer he can claim to be the only Democrat capable of beating Trump.
