SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Gov. Gavin Newsom will travel to Washington on Wednesday to meet with President Joe Biden and Democratic governors amid the fallout from the president’s disastrous debate with former President Donald Trump.
“Governor Newsom will be going to the White House tomorrow to attend the governors’ meeting and stand with the president,” a spokesman for the California Democrat said Tuesday night.
As White House aides scramble to quell fears about the president’s cognitive abilities after Thursday’s shaky debate performance, Biden is scheduled to meet with Democratic governors and congressional leaders Wednesday night. The meeting follows a phone call Monday, when two dozen Democratic governors met to discuss among themselves how to respond to the crisis. Newsom, whose name frequently appears in polls alongside other Democratic nominees such as Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker as potential replacements, was not present at the call.
Newsom has been a steadfast Biden supporter and was on hand in Atlanta last week to pull the president out of the spin room after the debate, in which the 81-year-old incumbent appeared confused and struggled to answer some questions. Newsom acknowledged a lackluster performance but was quick to dismiss calls for Biden to step aside, saying the American public should be watching his record in office — not a 90-minute debate.
Newsom continued to lend his vocal — and financial — support to the Biden campaign in the days following the debate, helping to raise hundreds of thousands of dollars for the president and the Democratic National Committee in the hours after the broadcast. Meanwhile, Newsom did his best to ignore intense speculation about whether he would replace the president on the Democratic ticket.
