WASHINGTON- Chairman Joe Biden is expected to discuss the future of his re-election campaign with family at Camp David on Sunday, after a nationally televised debate Thursday left many fellow Democrats concerned about his ability to defeat the former president Donald Trump in November, according to five people familiar with the matter.
Biden’s trip was planned before Thursday’s debate. Him and first lady Jill Biden are expected to join their children and grandchildren there late Saturday.
So far, the party’s top leaders have offered public support for Biden, including in tweets from former Presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton. Senior congressional Democrats, including representatives. Hakeem Jeffries from New York, Jim Clyburn of South Carolina and Nancy Pelosi of California have privately expressed concerns about his viability, two sources with knowledge of the talks said, even 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 one — told NBC News that three colleagues expressed the same sentiment to him during the House vote on Friday.
House leaders have not hesitated publicly and their aides denied 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, a spokesman for the former House speaker. “Any suggestion that she has taken a different course of action is simply untrue.”
Christie Stephenson, a spokeswoman for Jeffries, the House Minority Leader, said her boss “has made it clear repeatedly, publicly and privately, that he supports President Joe Biden and the Democratic ticket from top to bottom.”
Brianna Frias said Clyburn, who is traveling to Wisconsin this weekend to campaign for the president, “has complete confidence in President Joe Biden and the Biden-Harris ticket.”
“Any reports alleging that the congressman has expressed anything other than strong support for President Biden are completely untrue,” Frias said.
At the same time, there is 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 continue or end his campaign early — and that he will not respond well to pressure.
“The decision makers are two people: the president and his wife,” said one of the sources familiar with the discussions. He added: “Anyone who does not understand how deeply personal and familial this decision will be knows nothing 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, is based on interviews with more than a dozen Democratic officials, aides, aides and donors. They all spoke on condition of anonymity to describe matters as sensitive as whether a sitting president would abandon his re-election bid and how he might be replaced on the ballot.
Despite delivering a rousing speech at a rally in North Carolina on Friday that calmed some of his allies, Biden was described by one person familiar with his mood as humiliated, bereft of confidence and painfully aware that the physical images of him at the debate — eyes open and staring into the distance — will mean his presidency is over, along with a performance that was at times rambling, incoherent and hard to hear.
“It’s a mess,” this person said.
Another person familiar with the dynamics said Biden will ultimately listen to just one adviser.
“The only person who has the ultimate influence on him is the first lady,” this person said. “If she decides that there needs to be a change of course, then there will be a change of course.”
Following the publication of this report, a source familiar with the matter reached out to emphasize that the Camp David meeting was not a formal family gathering.
“Any discussion about the campaign is expected to be informal or an afterthought,” the source said. “No one sits down for a formal or decisive discussion.”
Anita Dunn, one of Biden’s handful of closest advisers, said Saturday on MSNBC’s “The Weekend” that Biden has not spoken to his advisers about dropping out of the race and that internal conversations have focused on moving forward.
“We had a bad debate,” Dunn said. “What are we going to do now? You know, the president is focused on what are we going to do now? What am I going to do?”
These private conversations between Biden, his family members and his top advisers take place against the backdrop of a reckoning with Democrats, who were shocked by Biden’s appearance and the frequency with which his thinking seemed to deviate.
His campaign held a conference call with members of the Democratic National Committee on Saturday. According to a Biden campaign official, this was an attempt to reassure party officials and show that his team is communicating with its allies.
“We are the driving force,” the official said.
Biden’s top aides and advisers have told his staff to stay the course in meetings and discussions. Their message, according to a senior administration official: “We will weather the storm, just like we always have.”
Sources have described three groups of Democrats: those who will defend Biden under any circumstances, those who are ready to dump him, and those who are waiting to see what he does — and what his poll numbers look like in the coming days and weeks — before passing judgment. It’s the third group that Democratic insiders are keeping a close eye on.
“Democrats need to take a deep breath and look at those polls, look at the swing voters,” said one Democratic Party chairman. “Until I see something else, he is the person who put this coalition together, he is the person who has the record, he is the person who defeated Donald Trump. Until I see otherwise, he is still the best person to beat Donald Trump.”
The Biden campaign declined to comment for this piece, instead pointing to a Saturday memo from campaign chairman Jen O’Malley Dillon that argued Biden can still win, pointing to the more than $27 million they have between the debate day and Friday evening.
O’Malley Dillon, however, nodded to the possibility of a tough election ahead — but said the blame will lie with the media: “If we see changes in the polls in the coming weeks, it won’t be the first time that exaggerated media stories have caused temporary dips in the polls.”
Some Democrats are discussing, among other things, the best way to defeat Trump. Can they stick with an 81-year-old incumbent candidate who has another shot at any time between now and Election Day, like Thursday night, or opt for another candidate who could be nominated at the party convention next month, which could be a messy process? become.
Biden insisted on Friday that he will remain the party’s standard-bearer in November, telling a crowd at his rally in North Carolina: “I would not run for re-election 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 spoke openly about it at an event on Saturday.
“I understand the concern about the debate — I understand it,” he added. “I haven’t had a great night.”
Party elites will only urge him to leave the race if they determine he is “unviable and negatively impacting the House and Senate races,” said a major donor close to both Obama and Biden.
Inherent in the wait-and-see attitude is the recognition that there is no clear replacement for Biden and that his departure could unleash a bloody intraparty battle that could allow Trump to cruise to victory.
There is also no feasible way to unseat him. All but a handful of Democratic convention delegates were elected on the basis of their pledge to nominate him at the party convention in August. If he chooses to run for that nomination, party insiders say he will get it.
Moreover, according to a senior Democratic official, the party leadership would have much more control over choosing a replacement if Biden were to drop out after receiving the nomination than if he did so beforehand. Once a candidate is officially nominated, there is a process by which Democratic National Committee members can choose a successor. Biden is the dominant force at the DNC, and his preference for a successor would certainly prevail.
If Biden were to step down early, his delegates might do what he asked — but they wouldn’t be bound in the same way they are now. In that scenario, delegates could nominate anyone they wanted, and the convention could devolve into a political brawl.
“We need discipline as much as we need emotion,” the senior Democratic official said. “It is not politically smart for Biden to resign.”
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
