Washington
CNN
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President Joe Biden has been isolating at his Delaware beachfront home after testing positive for COVID-19 and is increasingly isolated from many quarters within the Democratic Party amid growing doubts about whether he should continue his reelection campaign.
Biden’s announcement of his positive test on Wednesday came amid growing calls within his party for him to step down from the presidential race in 2024. CNN reported that former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi had privately told the president that polls showed Biden could not beat former President Donald Trump in November’s presidential election and that continuing to run for president could hurt Democrats’ chances of retaking the House of Representatives.
Biden’s age and health, long his biggest political weaknesses, have come under scrutiny since his third presidential run, which began in 2019, following a campaign-changing performance in last month’s presidential debate. Several incidents in the past week have been held up as signs that Biden may not be nimble enough to persuade voters to beat Trump, much less serve another four years as president.
The BET interview, taped Tuesday and aired in full late Wednesday night, is the latest moment being scrutinized by nervous Democrats. In it, Biden said his only reason for dropping out of the race was “health issues” — comments made just one day before he tested positive for COVID-19.
He faltered when referring to black members of his administration, describing Lloyd Austin as secretary of defense without mentioning him by name.
“Look at, for example, how much criticism I’ve received for nominating a black person for secretary of defense. I nominated Ketanji Brown because of the people I nominated,” Biden said, referring to his Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson.
The White House said Wednesday that the president is experiencing “upper respiratory symptoms, including a runny nose and dry cough, and general fatigue” as a result of his coronavirus infection. Video of the president departing Las Vegas shows him slowly walking up the stairs to board Air Force One, pausing on the second step to compose himself before entering the aircraft.
Additional video taken by a reporter who met with Biden in Delaware late Wednesday also shows the president struggling to settle into his SUV on the way to his home in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, where he is scheduled to quarantine. The video shows Biden taking 30 seconds to get into the SUV and needing help from Secret Service agents to settle in the car. The president did not wear a mask during his interaction with agents, despite having COVID-19. He eventually did.
During a visit to a local restaurant early Wednesday, the president appeared to mistake Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford for the state’s governor. While speaking with a customer, Biden pointed at Ford and asked, “Do you know the governor?” People nearby laughed at the remark, but it’s unclear if Biden was joking.
CNN has reached out to the Biden campaign and the White House for comment on the events in Nevada and the president’s arrival in Delaware.
Biden’s deputy campaign manager, Quentin Fulks, said Thursday that he is “not running this campaign for any scenario” in which Biden would not become the presidential nominee.
“The vice president is part of the Biden-Harris candidacy. Our campaign is not operating under a scenario where President Biden is not the leading candidate. He is the Democratic nominee and he will continue to be that,” he said at a press conference at the Democratic National Convention in Milwaukee, when asked if the campaign had any plans in place if Vice President Kamala Harris were to take the lead.
Asked whether Biden would be open to discussions about dropping out of the race, Fulks said: “The president has said many times, he intends to continue running the campaign.”
“The president is in the race. He’ll continue the campaign in Chicago to accept delegates and discuss what’s at stake, and we look forward to that,” he added.
As calls for Biden to reconsider his candidacy are expected to grow louder on Thursday, some of the reasons are becoming clearer: Not only is Biden inferior to Trump, but Democratic candidates fear voters will see their defense of Biden as insincere.
“Defending Biden’s eligibility is an untenable position for lower-ranking Democrats,” said a memo released Wednesday by a leading Democratic polling firm. Voters, the memo said, “are likely to view the actions of other Democrats who defend Biden as both qualified and disingenuous.”
CNN obtained the polling memos from Blue Rose Research, which are distributed daily to Democratic Party activists and officials, and Pelosi is among those poring over the rarely made public details and findings of the documents.
The memo, dated Wednesday, offers a clearer picture of the reasons behind calls for Biden to resign.
“Concerns about President Biden’s fitness to serve are widespread,” the memo said, pointing to polling data that shows a significantly smaller number of voters, even those who supported Biden in 2020, believe he is capable of serving a second term.
While the partisan polling doesn’t meet CNN’s standards, the 16-page document is valuable because it offers a glimpse into panic and alarm across the Democratic Party.
An AP-NORC poll released Wednesday found that 14% of all Americans are extremely or very confident that Biden has the “mental capacity to be an effective president.” Among Democrats, the figure is 27%.
According to internal research data, the battlegrounds in the presidential election are expanding, with the contest between Biden and Trump intensifying in New Hampshire, Minnesota, New Mexico, Virginia and Maine in addition to the current seven major battleground states.
The president has experienced several incidents over the last week that have further alarmed Democrats about whether he can continue to campaign effectively.
On July 11, during the final day of the NATO summit in Washington, the president made a series of gaffes. At one event, he referred to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky as “President Putin,” before correcting himself, and at a press conference, he referred to Harris as “Vice President Trump,” without correcting or acknowledging the gaffe.
At the same press conference, Biden also walked back his earlier claim that only “God Almighty” could convince him to drop out of the race, saying he would not drop out “unless they come back and say you have no chance of winning.”
After several calls with key groups of senators on Friday and Saturday, skeptical senators appeared unconvinced that Biden could win. CNN reported Wednesday night that Democratic senators told CNN that Biden’s onslaught in recent days following Saturday’s assassination attempt on Trump has only exacerbated the panic within the party. “It’s getting worse,” the senators said.
Another House Democrat, who watched Biden’s interview with NBC News’ Lester Holt on Monday, said he was “deeply saddened to see an honorable man wading through the waters rather than leading us.”
The assassination attempt on President Trump eased political pressure on Biden for a few days, but it has increased again in recent days as some of Biden’s allies have quietly lobbied the Democratic National Committee to speed up Biden’s hypothetical nomination process, with the aim of starting roll call votes as early as next week, according to reports from CNN and other sources.
Concerned Democrats have convinced the DNC not to speed up the deadline for the vote, buying themselves more time; voting will not begin before August 1, CNN reported. The delay halted a draft letter circulating among House Democrats that, if formally voted on, would have exposed further rifts within the party. Both House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer have asked the DNC to postpone the vote, multiple sources told CNN.
Several Democratic aides told CNN the president has been less defiant behind the scenes than he has been in public.
“Private discussions with Congress are ongoing,” a senior Democratic adviser told CNN on the condition of anonymity to avoid straining relations between the campaign and the White House. “Trump has shown he is receptive. He’s not been as defiant as he has been in public.”
“He’s gone from saying, ‘Kamala can’t win,’ to, ‘Do you think Kamala can win?'” the adviser said. “It remains to be seen where he’ll land, but he seems to be listening.”
Biden’s campaign, which has also faced fierce protests from Democratic donors, has denied suggestions the president is reconsidering his candidacy.
“If facts matter, and they should matter, then one thing can be said: President Biden is the Democratic nominee and he will win the election in November,” Biden spokesman Kevin Munoz told CNN.
Biden has become increasingly defensive about his political stance in recent days, with CNN reporting that he held an unsuccessful call with Democratic lawmakers over the weekend after the president was confronted by lawmakers with polling data that showed his standing in the presidential race had dramatically deteriorated.
CNN reported Wednesday night that Pelosi told Biden last week that polling data showed he couldn’t win reelection. One source said Biden pushed back, telling Pelosi he’d seen polls that showed he could win. Another source said Biden had become defensive about the polls. None of the sources would say whether Pelosi told Biden in that conversation that she thought the president should drop out of the 2024 race.
Asked for comment, White House spokesman Andrew Bates did not respond to details of CNN’s report of a recent call between Pelosi and Biden. “President Biden is the party’s nominee. He is committed to winning and looks forward to working with congressional Democrats to pass a 100-day package of measures to support working families,” Bates said.
CNN’s MJ Lee, Annie Grayer, Donald Judd and Veronica Straqualusi contributed to this report.
