Leading Democrats warn that President Biden has just days to prove he can overcome questions about his mental and physical fitness and defeat former President Donald Trump in November.
More than a week after Mr. Biden’s disastrous debate performance, prominent Democrats are publicly expressing doubts about his candidacy. Four senior House Democrats said in a private leadership call Sunday that he should be removed from the ticket and replaced by Vice President Kamala Harris.
A small but growing number of congressional Democrats are pressuring the president, 81, to withdraw from the race.
Other party lawmakers publicly gave the president one 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. Christopher 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 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 despite Mr. Biden’s efforts to prove his mental fitness at campaign events and in an ABC News interview that aired Friday evening.
During the interview, Mr. Biden assumed the blame for his poor debate performance and insisted, “I’m still in good shape.”
The ABC News appearance raised even more questions about his mental acuity. Mr. Biden struggled to remember whether he had watched a replay of the debate, sidestepped questions about whether he had any recent mental lapses and refused to take a cognitive test and release its results to the public.
By Sunday, Democrats publicly doubted 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.
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 his name from the ticket.
Among them were 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).
They bring the number of congressional Democrats who want Mr. Biden to quit the race to nine. Many expect the number will increase this week when lawmakers return to Capitol Hill from the Independence Day 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 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 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 wasn’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 to those 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 become all but standard for the president and which are under unprecedented scrutiny.
In the same speech to Wisconsin voters, Mr. Biden insisted he would defeat Mr. Trump but mixed up the election date.
“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’s apparent confusion and gaffes.
Media outlets have produced “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 from a recent fundraiser apparently showed the president the path to his lectern.
Another report exposed staffers’ efforts to script his appearances and interviews.
A Milwaukee-based radio host acknowledged she was provided questions directly from Mr. Biden’s campaign team to ask the president in his first interview after 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.
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