President Biden faces mounting pressure to withdraw from the 2024 ticket as leading Democrats warn he has just days to prove he can beat former President Donald Trump amid questions about his mental and physical fitness.

More than a week after Mr. Biden’s disastrous debate performance, prominent Democrats publicly expressed doubts about his candidacy while four senior House Democrats said in a private leadership call Sunday that Mr. Biden should be removed from the ticket and replaced by Vice President Kamala Harris.

A small, but growing number of Congressional Democrats are pushing for the 81-year-old president to withdraw from the presidential race.

Other party lawmakers publicly set a deadline, giving the president a week to assuage doubts and prove he can defeat Mr. Trump, 78,  amid polls showing the former president with a widening lead.  

“The clock is ticking,” Sen. Chris Murphy, Connecticut Democrat, said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “This is going to be a really important and vital week for the country and for the president.”

Mr. Murphy said Mr. Biden this week must show voters, without relying on scripted events or a teleprompter, that he is fit to serve as president for four more years.

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“If that doesn’t happen, then, obviously, the president has a decision to make,” Mr. Murphy said.

Democrats remained panicked about Mr. Biden’s place on the ticket despite efforts by the president to prove his mental fitness in campaign events and in an ABC News interview that aired Friday evening.

Mr. Biden, during the interview, assumed the blame for his bad debate performance and insisted, “I’m still in good shape.”  

But the ABC News appearance raised a new set of questions about his mental acuity. Mr. Biden struggled to remember whether he had watched a replay of the debate, sidestepped questions about whether he’s had any recent mental lapses, and refused to take a cognitive test and release its results to the public.

By Sunday, Democrats were publicly doubting whether he belonged on the 2024 ticket.

“The performance in the debate rightfully raised questions among the people about whether the president has the vigor to defeat Trump,” Rep. Adam Schiff, a top Democrat from California who is running for Senate, said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

“Biden should be mopping the floor with Trump. It shouldn’t even be close,” he said, though he sidestepped questions about replacing Mr. Biden, neither giving him a full-throated endorsement nor saying he should step aside.

If Mr. Biden “takes the time to consult people and has an open mind about this, he will do what Joe Biden always does, which is he will make the right decision,” he said.

In the private leadership call Sunday afternoon, organized by House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, New York Democrat, several top party lawmakers said Mr. Biden should remove himself from the ticket.

Those who said so included the ranking Democrats on four House committees — Reps. Adam Smith of Washington (Armed Services), Jerrold Nadler of New York (Judiciary), Mark Takano of California (Veterans Affairs) and Joseph Morelle of New York (House Administration).

Those four lawmakers bring to nine the number of Congressional Democrats who want Mr. Biden to quit the race, and it’s a number that many expect will increase this week when lawmakers return to Capitol Hill from the July 4 recess.

Democrats who want Mr. Biden out of the race are publicly and privately backing Ms. Harris to replace him at the top of the ticket, despite her historically low poll numbers.

The move would both ensure that the Biden-Harris campaign war chest remains in the hands of the Democratic nominee and would avoid a likely backlash among the base that could result if the party tries to bypass the first black female vice president.

Mr. Biden has adamantly refused to step aside. He spent the holiday weekend assuring voters he isn’t going anywhere.

“Let me say this as clearly as I can. I’m staying in the race,” Mr. Biden told voters in Madison, Wisconsin on Friday.

In a veiled warning shot to those in the party who might try to force him off the ticket, Mr. Biden reminded the crowd that “millions of Democrats just like you voted for me in primaries all across America.”

Mr. Biden’s holiday weekend appearances, however, were sprinkled with the flubs and occasional gibberish that have now become all but standard for the president and which are under new and unprecedented scrutiny.

In the same speech to Wisconsin voters, Mr. Biden insisted he will beat Mr. Trump but mixed up the date of the election.

“I’ll beat him again in 2020,” Mr. Biden said.

In remarks to voters in Philadelphia on Sunday, the president said when he ran for Senate, where he represented Delaware for decades, “quite frankly, not a joke, Philadelphia, in particular, got me across the line.”

The Republican National Committee has seized on the public’s growing doubts about Mr. Biden. They recorded his appearances and posted every instance of the president appearing confused or making gaffes.

Media outlets have joined in on the scrutiny, producing “scoops” about how the White House tries to shield Mr. Biden’s cognitive decline.

A Sunday report from Axios showed leaked images produced by staffers to help Mr. Biden navigate his public appearances. Two photos that staffers apparently provided to the president at a recent fundraiser showed him the path to his podium.  

In another report, staffer efforts to script his appearances and interviews were exposed.

A Milwaukee-based radio host admitted she was provided questions directly from Mr. Biden’s campaign team to ask the president in his first interview following the disastrous debate.

Former Rep. Tim Ryan, an Ohio Democrat who lost his U.S. Senate bid in 2022, said Sunday that Mr. Biden will face increasing pressure from Democrats who fear his low poll numbers will cost them their seats in the House and Senate.

“I think you’re going to see a significant amount of pressure whether it’s today or tomorrow, sometime this week, as the members come back, that this may be untenable for them to all want to run under a Biden ticket,” Mr. Ryan said on “Fox News Sunday.”

“It’s going to drag everybody else down, and I think that’s a major, major concern for Leader Jeffries who’s a phenomenal leader, but I think his members, donors, activists around the country are very, very concerned,” he said.

• Susan Ferrechio can be reached at sferrechio@washingtontimes.com.

• Mallory Wilson can be reached at mwilson@washingtontimes.com.