Behind the scenes, Obama has been discussing Biden’s future and fielding calls from a number of anxious Democrats, including former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., who have offered their views on the president’s agenda, according to a person with knowledge of the calls who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the private conversations.
A spokesman for President Obama declined to comment.
Obama sees his role as a confidant and adviser to the former vice president and has told allies he wants to protect Biden. In those conversations, Obama has said he thinks Biden has been a great president and wants to protect his record, which could be in jeopardy if Republicans take control of the White House and both houses of Congress next year.
Obama, who has long relied on data for political insight, has told people in several conversations that he is concerned that polls are moving away from Biden, that former President Donald Trump’s electoral path is widening and that donors are abandoning the president.
Biden and his campaign advisers have remained publicly defiant, arguing the president is not dropping out of the race. Biden cut short a campaign stop in Las Vegas on Wednesday after testing positive for COVID-19 and returned to his vacation home in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, to quarantine.
Chief deputy campaign manager Quentin Fulks said Thursday morning that Biden’s campaign was moving forward. “He’s not upset about anything,” Fulks said. “The president has made his decision. I don’t want to be disrespectful, but I don’t know how many more times I can answer this question.”
Obama’s concerns come as widespread anxiety within the Democratic Party about Biden’s prospects and how they might affect other candidates. Democratic donors, activists and elected officials are increasingly turning to a small group of veteran elected leaders to help guide Biden out of the crisis created by his June 27 debate gaffe.
The top Democrats in Congress, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York and Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer of New York, both spoke directly with Mr. Biden last week and warned him about widely shared concerns that Mr. Biden’s candidacy could undermine the party’s chances for control of both chambers of Congress next year.
Pelosi has taken a more active role behind the scenes, resisting efforts to end discussion of whether Biden will still run, said a person familiar with her activities who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive issue.
Mr. Obama, perhaps the party’s most respected figure, has tried to keep a low profile, hoping to capitalize on his longtime friendship with Mr. Biden, his former vice president, but as party chairman from 2008 to 2016, he has become a voice for concerns within the party.
Former Obama advisers who continue to comment publicly on politics, from former Obama adviser David Axelrod to a group of younger aides who now run the podcast company Crooked Media, are among the most vocal Democrats who say Biden may no longer have a path to victory.
Democrats have been watching national polls move away from Biden since the debate, with the president now trailing in northern battleground states, and strategists are preparing for the possibility that Trump could gain momentum again at the nominating convention, as he did in 2016 and 2020, and a rise in his approval ratings after Saturday’s assassination attempt.
The Post previously reported that Obama shared his concerns about Biden’s path forward after the debate and that the two presidents spoke in the days after the debate. But in the weeks since, Obama’s concerns about Biden’s candidacy have only deepened, people familiar with the matter said.
“I think Biden is a very strong candidate for the presidency, and he has been a great leader in the country for many years,” Obama said.
“Sometimes debates go horribly,” Obama wrote, “trust me, I know. But this election is a choice between someone who has spent their whole life fighting for ordinary people and someone who only thinks about themselves.”
Obama has remained largely silent in public since then, but Biden aides say he could have prevented Oscar-winning actor George Clooney, a close friend of the former president, from writing an op-ed in The New York Times calling on Biden to drop out of the presidential race.
Jeffrey Katzenberg, a Biden campaign official and movie mogul, tried unsuccessfully to block publication of the story by Clooney, a longtime friend, a person familiar with his lobbying efforts said.
