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After a competent but stumbling appearance at a high-stakes press conference on the world’s stage Thursday evening, President Joe Biden’s campaign is hoping to end a weekslong crisis as he faces calls to end his re-election campaign over growing concerns about his viability and fitness for office.
But the campaign’s been unable to stop a deluge of lawmakers, prominent celebrities, and donors calling on him to quit, with potentially $90 million worth of donations now at stake if he remains atop the ticket.
Barack Obama has even reportedly spoken privately with former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi about concerns that he may not be up to the task of defeating Donald Trump, adding to fears that the president will spend the next several months heading into an election he cannot win. According to multiple reports, Obama and Pelosi are still unsure of how to make the case to Biden that he needs to stand down.
Obama appeared with Biden at a fundraiser last month, before the 81-year-old president’s floundering performance in his first 2024 debate against Trump. He initially spoke up in Biden’s defense in a post-debate social media post, but he hasn’t spoken on the matter since, and appears to be taking a wait-and-see approach in the hopes that Biden will make a decision on his own.
Biden has insisted on staying in the race, most recently during his closely watched press conference at the close of the annual NATO summit in Washington.
Speaking to a packed house of high-ranking officials and reporters on July 11, Biden used the opportunity to underscore what he described as the global stakes of the 2024 election while warning against the threat of his “predecessor” fracturing long-held alliances.
Yet at the same time he was hoping to calm nerves and demonstrate his continued fitness, he was leaving supporters holding their breath.
Having mixed up the names of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Russian President Vladimir Putin during an event just hours before the news conference, he did nothing to assuage concerns when he then mistakenly referred to Vice President Kamala Harris as “Vice President Trump” as he answered a question from a reporter about her qualifications.
Within 12 hours after his press conference ended, at least four more House Democrats called on him to step aside and let a younger candidate enter the race against Trump. At least 16 Democratic members of Congress have now called on Biden to leave the race, including one sitting senator.
Actors and major Democratic donors George Clooney and Ashley Judd have also written newspaper op-eds urging him to end his campaign.
Meanwhile, several major donors have reportedly told the largest pro-Biden political action committee that roughly $90 million in pledged donations could be at risk.
House Democrats are also furious that the White House and Biden’s campaign have appeared to brush aside fears that their own campaigns could be compromised with the failure of an unelectable candidate leading the ticket.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries met privately with Biden the evening of the press conference to discuss a “path forward” for 2024.
Biden’s campaign has also acknowledged a shrinking path to victory on the Electoral College map. A recent memo states that the campaign is now focused on securing the “blue wall” of Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan. It is unclear how the Democratic Party will compete in other battleground states that Biden won in 2020, and how down-ballot races will be affected in the shuffle.
Biden’s press conference intended to affirm America’s strengthened relationships with allies in the face of Russia’s war in Ukraine and an emboldened Vladimir Putin in an age of Trump’s nationalism. But Biden was asked about whether he can realistically beat his rival, if he will commit to a neurological exam before Election Day, and if he would even agree to step aside if polls showed he would definitively lose.
“I’m not in this for my legacy,” he said. “I’m in this to complete the job I started.”
The next day, he returned to the campaign trial in Detroit — appearing at the same high school where he pledged to be a bridge to the next generation of Democratic leaders during his 2020 campaign.
In campaign rallies in the aftermath of the June 27 debate, Biden has suggested that “elites” are plotting against him, and that the push to end his campaign is coming from powerful unseen opponents.
But concerns about Biden’s age and fitness have been an issue since before the debate, and reports have suggested that his staff has been actively covering up signs of the president’s decline.
While Biden was addressing his political future, Trump was meeting with Hungary’s far-right prime minister Viktor Orban, who had recently met with Putin and China President Xi Jinping. Orban had ditched NATO to visit Trump’s Mar-a-Lago compound.
Trump’s campaign has exploited news of Biden’s fitness by deflecting from questions about his own competency as he continues to hold his own hard-to-follow and lie-filled campaign rallies.
