According to reports, President Biden is seriously considering whether to continue as the Democratic presidential nominee.
The New York Times reported on Wednesday that Biden told “key allies” that after his disastrous debate performance, he recognizes he may struggle to win reelection if he cannot convince the American people that he is fit to be president.
“While allies stressed that the president is still fighting a tough re-election fight, he knows his next few hearings leading up to the holiday weekend must go well, including an interview with ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos scheduled for Friday and campaign stints in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin,” the report said.
“He knows that if he holds two more similar events, the situation will change by the end of the week,” an anonymous source told The Times.
Newsom is heading east to meet with Biden, but the president is trying to block the campaign from heading south.
President Biden spoke at a campaign event in Philadelphia on April 18th. (Hannah Beyer/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
Another senior adviser to the president was quoted as saying Biden “understands well the political challenges he faces.”
White House press secretary Andrew Bates disputed the report shortly after it was published.
“The allegation is completely false and we would have said so if The New York Times had given us more than seven minutes to comment,” he told Fox News Digital in a statement.
Majority of voters support Biden withdrawing, while Trump’s base ‘seems stronger’: poll
President Biden is facing numerous calls from within the Democratic Party to step down after his stagnant, lackluster performance at Thursday’s CNN presidential debate in Atlanta. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
Biden’s chief deputy campaign manager, Quentin Fulks, also called the report “false” during an appearance on CNN on Wednesday.
“There are a lot of rumors going around. The president is in this race to win. He’s the Democratic nominee. From our standpoint, we’re going to continue to do everything we can to build our campaign organization and reach out to voters,” Fulks said.
At 81, Biden, the oldest president in U.S. history, is facing the toughest period in his quest for a second term in the White House.
His awkward speech and halting answers At the CNN presidential debate Biden’s comments on Thursday caused widespread panic within the Democratic Party, with political pundits, editorial writers and party donors calling for him to step down as the presidential standard-bearer in 2024. In the past 24 hours, a small number of Democratic lawmakers have also urged the president not to seek reelection.
Majority of voters think Biden is cognitively unfit to be president: poll
Democrats have warned that Biden’s poor debate performance could cost him the presidential election in November. (Kyle Mazza/Anadolu via Getty Images)
Biden is scheduled to meet with Democratic governors at the White House on Wednesday, days after Democratic Governors Association Chairman Tim Walz discussed the debate’s aftermath in a conference call with the DGA.
Many governors, including some who have been rumored to be potential successors in the highly unlikely event that Biden gives up reelection, have remained supportive of the president while acknowledging his shaky performance in the debates.
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More than 4 in 10 Democrats said the party should step in and remove Biden from the running, according to a USA Today/Suffolk University poll released this week. Overall, 54% of voters surveyed supported Biden’s withdrawal.
Fox News Digital’s Paul Steinhauser and Andrea Vacchiano contributed to this report.
