President Joe Biden appears to be more receptive to mounting calls from congressional Democrats for him to step down, and now some are expecting him to make an announcement soon.
While Biden has publicly committed to staying in the race after growing calls within his party to step aside following his lackluster debate performance, he has indicated this week that he is being more receptive to calls from within the party to step aside. One person close to the president told the New York Times that Biden “is willing to listen” but said he was not changing his mind at this time.
Now, top Democrats said they expect the announcement that he will step down to come as soon as this weekend, as messages that he can’t win have sunk in, Axios reported Thursday. Party members are expecting polls from after the Republican National Convention to be very negative for Biden.
The news comes as the leading two Democrats in Congress, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), reportedly told Biden their concerns about him staying in the race. Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), who is a candidate for Senate in California and has a close relationship with former Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), also called on Biden to withdraw Wednesday.
“The private conversations with the Hill are continuing,” a senior Democratic adviser told CNN on Wednesday, “He’s being receptive. Not as defiant as he is publicly.
“He’s gone from saying, ‘Kamala can’t win,’ to ‘Do you think Kamala can win?” the adviser said. “It’s still unclear where he’s going to land but seems to be listening.”
ABC News also reported that Jeffries and Schumer told Democratic Party officials to delay the official nomination process for Biden to let further debate play out.
A spokesperson for Schumer called the report “idle speculation,” but did not deny that Biden and Schumer spoke.
“Unless ABC’s source is Senator Chuck Schumer or President Joe Biden, the reporting is idle speculation,” the Schumer spokesperson said in a statement. “Leader Schumer conveyed the views of his caucus directly to President Biden on Saturday.”
Biden campaign manager Quentin Fulks told the Washington Examiner in a statement that there are “no plans being made to replace President Biden on the ballot.”
“Joe Biden has said he is running for President of the United States,” Fulks said. “Our campaign is moving forward, drawing a vision and a contrast between that of Project of 2025 and what we’ve seen for the past three days here in Milwaukee — the extreme agenda of Republicans — and that’s where our focus is.”
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At his NATO summit press conference, Biden said the only way he would drop out was if polls found there was absolutely “no way” he could win his reelection campaign.
That changed Wednesday when Biden said in an interview with BET News he would only consider dropping “if I had some medical condition that emerged.” Later that day, he was diagnosed with COVID-19 at a critical time in which Democrats are trying to put Biden in more media interviews and campaign events.