WASHINGTON — In recent conversations with aides, family and allies outside the White House, President Joe Biden is vacillating between acceptance and defiance in the face of a dramatic shift in his own party’s political standing, according to four people familiar with the matter.
In some discussions, Biden acknowledged that the backlash over his performance in last week’s debate could be too great to overcome, but in others he rejected the idea that he might withdraw from the reelection campaign at all, the people said.
The president’s family, particularly First Lady Jill Biden and his son Hunter Biden, have increasingly been pushing the president to make staff changes and offering input on campaign strategy to resuscitate his faltering campaign, according to three people familiar with the matter.
Biden’s sister, Valerie Owens, is due to visit Washington on Thursday to join other family members at the White House for the Independence Day holiday, but she also plans to meet in person to discuss her brother’s campaign, according to a person familiar with her plans.
Biden’s family has privately blamed some of his longtime aides for his disastrous debate performance. They have discussed, for example, whether to fire White House senior adviser Anita Dunn and even Dunn’s husband, Bob Bauer, who is Biden’s personal lawyer, according to two people familiar with the matter.
Dunn and Bauer were early supporters of Biden’s 2020 presidential campaign, having endorsed him for the 2016 bid but ultimately dropped out. They were among more than a dozen Biden aides involved in days of preparation for last week’s debate, with Dunn acting as moderator and Bauer playing former President Donald Trump. For more than a year, the two have drawn the ire of the Biden family by expressing the view that Hunter Biden should keep a low profile in dealing with his legal challenges.
White House chief of staff Jeff Zients denied there had been any discussion about firing Dunn or Bauer.
“The president and first lady have the utmost confidence in their team, including Anita and Bob,” Zients said in a statement. “There is absolutely no truth to these baseless and derogatory rumors.”
“The family is afraid. The advisers are extremely loyal and are doing their jobs. This is completely baseless,” a senior Democratic Party official said.
Aides said Biden told advisers that he did not blame the team that prepared him for his performance in the debate.
Biden’s family has been the most vocal in rejecting any suggestion he is dropping out of the race, according to people familiar with private discussions. Biden has no plans to drop out and has stressed that publicly. But he is weighing his own instincts to stay in the race, and his family’s backing for that instinct, against growing calls to step aside and data showing the damage his debate performance has done to his reelection chances.
“He knows there may not be a realistic path forward,” one of the people said, “but he’s being pushed.”
“President Biden has been consistent and intends to continue the campaign,” White House spokesman Andrew Bates said in a statement.
Biden has begun negotiations with Democratic leaders in recent days amid growing calls for him to resign and growing anxiety among his supporters.
But former President Barack Obama’s advice in a phone call this week didn’t sit well with Biden, who still harbors resentment toward his former boss for advising him not to run for president in 2016.
Obama has privately questioned the idea that he could influence such a personal decision by Biden if party leaders decide they need to persuade him to drop out of the race, according to two people familiar with Obama’s comments.
“President Biden appreciates President Obama’s counsel and support for his leadership,” White House Press Secretary Bates said in a statement.
Asked for comment, a spokesman for Mr Obama pointed to recent public comments in which he endorsed Mr Biden and noted that Mr Obama himself performed poorly in the 2012 re-election debates.
Biden was initially fired up to press ahead with his campaign after receiving a rapturous welcome from the crowd at a rally in North Carolina on Friday afternoon, according to two people familiar with the matter. But as the weekend wore on, the gravity of what happened on that national debate stage sunk in for Biden, the people said.
His mood changed: NBC News reported that he was deeply hurt and embarrassed by his terrible debate performance, which was seen around the world.
The question he faces has gone beyond simply whether he can withstand outside political pressure to step down to whether he can overcome his debate humiliation with the confidence to get back in the ring and fight in a hard-fought battle.
“Throughout his life, Joe Biden has been knocked down and gotten back up,” White House press secretary Bates said in a statement.
Rep. Don Beyer, D-Va., who hosted Biden at a fundraiser on Tuesday, said Biden did not seem like a dissuaded candidate.
“He looked strong. He didn’t look timid. He didn’t look scared. He didn’t look like a beaten down guy. He didn’t look like a guy in danger,” Beyer said. “Just very confident, like, ‘I’m going to win this.'”
NBC News reported that Hunter Biden urges his father to continue the campaign, and Jill Biden is adamant that he won’t give up.
Gathered with the Biden family at Camp David in Maryland last weekend, she pointed to all the family has endured since Biden decided to run for president — including the attacks on Hunter Biden and the criminal investigation into her son, which have publicly exposed some of their darkest and most painful moments — and urged them to fight now, two people familiar with the conversation said. She noted Hunter Biden’s recent felony firearms conviction and said our son may go to prison because of this.
While Jill Biden was in Pennsylvania on Tuesday campaigning for her husband with members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, Rep. Nanette Barragan, D-Calif., said Biden’s debate performance wasn’t a topic of conversation. Barragan told NBC News that Jill Biden was “upbeat, always smiling, engaging with us.”
“I didn’t see anything that would tell me anything was going on or anything else,” she said.
Immediately after the debate, Mr. Biden’s family tried to understand what had happened in preparation for the debate with senior members of Camp David staff, people familiar with the discussions said. They wanted to know who was responsible for churning out numbers and statistics, rather than coaching Mr. Biden to speak from the heart, the people said.
They particularly questioned the decision to have Bauer play Trump in the mock debate, despite outside suggestions that someone else should play Trump that were rejected by Biden’s top aides. A person close to Ron Klain, Biden’s former chief of staff who oversaw debate preparations, said Klain asked Bauer to play Trump, just as he did in the 2020 mock debates.
Family conversations now focus on how to reinstate Biden and keep his campaign going, while aides are orchestrating an extensive public relations effort to prevent key Democrats from breaking with him.
