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A group of Democratic governors has demanded a meeting at the White House to get reassurances from Joe Biden and advisers in the wake of his disastrous first debate.
The group, which contains some of Joe Biden’s most ardent supporters and some potential successors, has been startled by their lack of contact with the president following the debacle, according to The New York Times.
Biden, 81, received stinging criticism after he stumbled through the first televised debate of the 2024 election against Republican rival Donald Trump.
The proposed meeting on Wednesday, which would include Democratic governors attending the White House in person, comes after a reported virtual meeting held between themselves on Monday.
According to a Times source briefed on Monday’s meeting, a number of the governors expressed frustration with the vagueness of current circumstances, and that Biden is being somewhat shielded following the debate.
Despite this, the newspaper also reported that the president’s team was looking to organize trips to both Wisconsin and Pennsylvania later this week, another attempt at shoring up support and making him more visible to voters in key states.
On Tuesday in Washington, Biden delivered remarks on protecting workers and communities from extreme weather, cracking jokes with those gathered.
He also held an event in North Carolina the day after the first debate in which he recognized his age and debate issues while insisting he was a truth-teller compared to Trump.
The trips to Wisconsin and Pennsylvania – two major swing states – would potentially come on Friday and Sunday, according to the outlet.
The president’s advisers have been urged by several allies, including former speaker Nancy Pelosi, to make him more visible in the aftermath of the debate.
Governors, including California’s Gavin Newsom and Wes Moore, of Maryland, have recently been put out as surrogates to represent the president, with both denying any interest in replacing him on November’s ballot.
On Tuesday, representative Lloyd Doggett of Texas became the first Biden ally to call for the president to end his re-election campaign.
Doggett said Biden has run “substantially behind” other Democratic candidates in high-stakes races, has trailed Trump in most polls, and then “failed” to expose his Republican rival’s lies during the debate.
“Our overriding consideration must be who has the best hope of saving our democracy from an authoritarian takeover by a criminal and his gang,” he said in a statement on Tuesday.
Doggett’s statement followed former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s remarks on MSNBC that “it is a legitimate question” whether the president’s performance in his June 27 debate with Trump was “an episode or is this a condition.”
