President Biden privately told a key ally that he knows he may not be able to salvage his candidacy and will make a decision about whether to drop out of the presidential race in the next few days.
CNN and The New York Times each cited an unnamed “key ally” to Mr. Biden, 81, who said the president will be making a decision about his campaign’s future after a blitz of media appearances over the holiday weekend.
The Times report cited the ally as saying Mr. Biden “knows” that he will have to step aside if he is unable to convince the public that he is fit for the job.
The ally told the Times that Mr. Biden understands that his next few appearances, which include an interview with ABC News and campaign appearances in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, are critical to convincing the public he can stay in the race.
“He knows if he has two more events like [the debate], we’re in a different place” by the end of the weekend, the unnamed source told the Times.
The reports are the first signals that Mr. Biden is weighing whether he can recover from his terrible debate performance last week. Since the debate in which Mr. Biden gave meandering, at times incoherent answers, several Democrats have called for him to step down as the nominee.
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White House and campaign officials immediately pushed back on the report.
“This claim is absolutely false. If the New York Times had provided us with more than 7 minutes to comment we would have told them so,” White House deputy press secretary Andrew Bates posted on X.
The Biden campaign also insisted the report was “false.”
Deputy principal campaign manager Quentin Fulks told CNN that Mr. Biden is “in the race to win it.”
“He is the Democratic nominee,” Mr. Fulks told the outlet.
When asked if Mr. Biden has had zero conversations with anyone saying that he may not be able to continue,” Mr. Fulks responded. “That is correct.”
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Mr. Fulks emphasized that the only conversations Mr. Biden is having with Democrats are about reassuring them that he is in the race.
“He knows he needs to reassure the American people and that our campaign is going to build and scale to win in November,” he said.
The reports came just hours before Mr. Biden was to meet a group of Democratic governors to assure them he is up to remaining on the ticket as the nominee. Privately, some governors have griped that they haven’t heard anything from Mr. Biden in the weeks following his abysmal debate performance.
• Jeff Mordock can be reached at jmordock@washingtontimes.com.
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