President Biden’s increasingly emphatic declarations that he will not withdraw from the presidential race send a clear message to potential Democratic switchers that any future criticism will hurt the Democratic Party’s chances against Donald J. Trump.
Biden had said days before that he would remain the party’s nominee unless “Almighty God” intervened after his poor debate performance. On Monday, he made good on that claim.
It began with an open letter to Democratic lawmakers letting them know he was definitely running, followed by a defiant call to his favorite cable news show blasting the “elites” who are trying to oust him, a midday private video call with some of his campaign’s top donors and a private virtual meeting scheduled for Monday night with the Congressional Black Caucus, a bastion of his past support.
“I’m not going anywhere,” Biden told donors.
The Biden campaign hoped such actions would signal a show of defiance and earn Biden some respect as anxious Democrats trickle back to Capitol Hill after the holidays. At the same time, the Biden campaign sought to reframe the pressure campaign to remove Biden from office as one engineered by party elites, rather than a true reflection of grassroots voter anxieties about the age and competence of the 81-year-old commander in chief.
“It’s fun to run against Joe Biden,” said Rep. Robert Garcia of California, a Democrat and avowed Biden supporter. “He’s going to take a punch, and then he’s going to punch back and punch harder.”
In both private and public comments Monday, Biden made it clear he holds all the cards in deciding his political future: He won every state in the Democratic primaries, received 14 million votes and has almost all of the delegates heading to the party’s convention in Chicago next month.
“I’m more than just a presumptive,” Biden told “Morning Joe” co-host Mika Brzezinski in a phone interview with MSNBC. “I’m going to be the Democratic nominee.”
“We’ve stopped talking about debates. It’s time to take on Trump head on,” Biden said in a conference call with major campaign donors, seeking to shift the spotlight back to Trump.
But some of the president’s allies questioned why the public relations offensive came more than 10 days after the debate rather than immediately afterward. Biden waited until eight days after the debate to give his first unscripted interview with ABC News on Friday, and he didn’t call congressional leaders until days after the debate.
Veteran Democratic strategist David Doak said he understood Biden’s efforts to enforce party discipline, even if it risked “dividing the party at the worst possible time.” Biden worries that by explicitly insisting he won’t step down, he could weaken his position heading into the fall, making it harder for Democrats to call for his departure.
“Strategically speaking, if he wants to keep the nomination at all costs, I would advise him to do so,” Doak said. “The question is, ‘at all costs.'”
On MSNBC, Biden challenged those calling for him to field another candidate to run against him. “Come on, announce your candidacy for president,” he challenged. “Challenge me at the convention.”
Biden spoke in 2020 about being a “bridge” to the next generation of Democratic talent, and despite widespread concerns now about his age, he sees himself as the party’s best chance to beat Trump again.
“I wouldn’t be running if I didn’t absolutely believe I was the best candidate to beat Donald Trump in 2024,” Biden said.
Despite his position as party leader and the most powerful elected official in the country, Biden on Monday sought to assume the role of an outsider thwarting his own party’s establishment.
“I get really annoyed with the elites,” Biden said on MSNBC, a longtime favorite of the Democratic political establishment. “I’m not talking about you guys, I’m talking about the elites in our party, and they know so much more,” Biden said, delivering the last words in a sing-song voice laced with contempt.
Biden added that his weekend campaigns in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin reaffirmed his belief that voters support him. “I don’t care what the billionaires think,” he said.
Less than three hours later, Biden participated in a Zoom call with members of his National Finance Committee, a group of major donors, billionaires and financiers who pool donations from others, to thank them for their support.
Biden has tried to reframe his campaign as a fight against elites, a move that echoed Trump’s frequent attacks on his own party leadership and was unpopular with some in his party.
“This desire to pit ‘Democratic elites’ against ‘ordinary people’ is bad,” veteran Democratic strategist Hilary Rosen wrote on X. “The elites are actually lagging behind in their concerns about Biden, which a majority of voters have been worried about for the past two years.”
A New York Times/Siena College poll conducted last week found that 74% of voters say Biden is too old to be effective, including 59% of Democrats.
The day after leading House Democrats expressed reservations about endorsing Biden in a private virtual meeting, the president’s allies began lining up their endorsements and began receiving more statements of support, including from leading Black lawmakers.
“I support the president 100 percent,” Rep. Joyce Beatty of Ohio, a former chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, said on MSNBC. Current chair Rep. Steven Horsford of Nevada also issued a statement endorsing Biden on Monday. “President Joe Biden is the nominee, elected by millions of voters across this country.”
Rep. Grace Meng of New York, a former vice chair of the Democratic National Committee, also issued a statement of support. Some of Biden’s private critics have been largely silent in public, including Rep. Jerrold Nadler of New York, who refused to answer questions about the president during a speech in Manhattan.
Still, Biden continued to be dogged by new doubts about the Democrat on Monday.
Senator Jon Tester, who is up for re-election this fall in Montana where Trump is expected to win in a landslide, said the president “must prove to me and to the American people that he can do the job for another four years.”
And Rep. Greg Landsman of Ohio said Biden was “running out of time” and needed to be able to make his case “again and again.”
House Democrats are scheduled to hold a member-only briefing at their headquarters on Tuesday, with Biden’s next moves expected to be a central topic of discussion.
A key concern for many Biden supporters is whether the president will be able to handle an unscripted appearance.
White House Press Secretary John Kirby announced Monday that Trump will also take part in a “big boy press conference” on Thursday following the NATO summit.
But in a sign of the challenges the president will face, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre simply balked at questions about why a Parkinson’s disease expert had visited the White House eight times in eight months for the same briefing.
Ron Klain, a former Biden chief of staff who helped prepare the debate, wrote in X that “it takes the right candidate to beat Trump” and that “pundits have always bet on Democratic and Republican opponents who are masters of language, and they’ve lost.”
“Only one person hit him,” Crane added.
Patrick McGeehan and Nicholas Nehamas Contributed report.
