More Democrats ask Biden to drop out. His campaign says he'll be back next week
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President Biden does some retail campaigning at Mario's Westside Market in Las Vegas, alongside Rep. Steven Horsford, D-Nev., on July 16. A case of COVID took Biden off the trail the following day.Kent Nishimura / AFP via Getty Images -
Vice President Harris and her grand-nieces get ice cream from a shop owned by Tyra Banks, center left, in Washington, on July 19.Mark Schiefelbein/AP / AP
REHOBOTH BEACH, Del./WASHINGTON — More Democratic lawmakers on Friday publicly called for President Biden to end his campaign, including Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown, who said the intraparty drama was a distraction from issues important to voters in his tough reelection race this fall.
Biden was isolating in his beach house after getting COVID earlier this week. But he said in a statement on Friday that he would be back on the campaign trail next week.
His party has gone through an excruciatingly public deliberation over the past three weeks after Biden froze up during a debate with former President Donald Trump. Top leaders in Congress have failed to publicly deny a steady drip of leaks that they've appealed to Biden to step aside for a younger candidate because they think he can't win the election.
Asked about the scores of headlines reporting that Biden is considering whether to leave the race, his campaign chair Jen O’Malley Dillon told MSNBC’s Morning Joe that party leaders should consider the strong grassroots support for Biden and resolve their doubts over whether he should stay in the race for a second term.
“You have heard from the president directly time and again. He is in this race to win and he is our nominee and he's going to be our president for a second term," O'Malley Dillon said.
More Democrats ask Biden to step aside
There are now four senators who have asked their former long-time colleague to step aside. On Friday — the morning after Trump's acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention — Sen. Martin Heinrich, D-N.M., joined the list.
"By passing the torch, he would secure his legacy as one of our nation's greatest leaders and allow us to unite behind a candidate who can best defeat Donald Trump and safeguard the future of our democracy," said Heinrich, who is running for reelection in what is supposed to be a safe seat for the party.
A group of four prominent members from the Congressional Black Caucus, Congressional Hispanic Caucus and the progressive caucus called on Biden to stop running. "We must face the reality that widespread public concerns about your age and fitness are jeopardizing what should be a winning campaign," said Reps. Jared Huffman, D-Calif., Marc Veasey, D-Texas, Chuy Garcia, D-Ill., and Mark Pocan, D-Wis.
And there were a steady drip of other Democratic lawmakers issuing statements on Friday. Democratic sources told NPR that they expect more lawmakers will go public with concerns about the president's viability as a candidate, saying the process will take more time to play out as they watch DNC convention rules committee meetings this weekend.
But, the political arm of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, BOLD PAC, endorsed Biden. "It is clear that Latino voters will decide the margin of victory in competitive races up and down the ballot this cycle, from California and New Mexico to Arizona, Pennsylvania, Nevada, and Nebraska, said Rep. Linda Sánchez, D-Calif., chair of BOLD PAC.
Harris has campaign travel planned, too
If Biden were to drop out, it's unclear who would take his place. Vice President Harris is an obvious choice, and a group of young Democratic governors are also seen as having future presidential ambitions. All of them have said they fully support Biden.
Harris — who took her grand-nieces for ice cream in Washington on Friday — has travel planned for Massachusetts on Saturday, Milwaukee on Tuesday and Indianapolis on Wednesday.
The campaign has not yet announced where Biden will be traveling next week. On Friday, his doctor said his COVID symptoms have improved. He is taking the antiviral Paxlovid.
Biden campaign is pointing to support from grassroots Democrats
Meanwhile, the Democratic National Convention's rules committee met about the virtual roll call vote it plans to hold in early August to ensure the party's candidate is official before early state deadlines that come before the party's convention begins on Aug. 19.
The party is worried about lawsuits, the DNC's outside counsel Dana Remus said. "Unfortunately, at this moment in time, we have to assume that everything about the election process that Republicans and affiliated groups can challenge, they will challenge no matter the strength of their arguments," Remus said.
Another DNC committee will meet on Sunday to discuss the roll call further.
O’Malley Dillon said it has been a “tough several weeks” for the campaign but said the party needs to unify.
She said Biden has “the greatest respect for the leaders of our party” – referring to reports about the doubts expressed by congressional leaders and former President Barack Obama.
But O’Malley Dillon pointed to a letter now signed by 1,400 Black women leaders from across the country released this week that strongly backed Biden and urged party leaders to “stop the attacks” against him.
“We reject all efforts to disregard this fact or to circumvent the will of millions of voters” who backed Biden in the primaries, the women said in a signed copy of the letter obtained by NPR.
O’Malley Dillon said that the campaign has “seen some slippage in support” since Biden’s disastrous debate, but said party volunteers have found strong interest on the ground in battleground states.
“People are not moving from Joe Biden to Donald Trump. What they’re doing is they’re saying to us, 'Can he do it?' And the president is saying, 'Yes, I can,'" she said.
Transcript
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
The calls for President Biden to exit the presidential race are growing louder, but Biden campaign manager Jen O'Malley Dillon reiterated today on MSNBC that dropping out is not going to happen.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
JEN O'MALLEY DILLON: Joe Biden is more committed than ever to beat Donald Trump. And we believe on this campaign, we are built for the close election that we are in, and we see the path forward.
SHAPIRO: NPR political correspondent Sue Davis is here with the latest. Hi, Sue.
SUSAN DAVIS, BYLINE: Hey, Ari.
SHAPIRO: Today, more Democrats are publicly calling on Biden to step aside. Bring us up to speed.
DAVIS: Well, that list now includes New Mexico Senator Martin Heinrich. He's up for reelection in a state that, frankly, Democrats considered quite safe politically. So when people like Heinrich are joining this call, it's going to raise fears that the map of competitive states is expanding and it's expanding in favor of Republicans. There was also a group of House Democrats who put out a joint statement that represent a bit of a spectrum of the caucus. That includes Marc Veasey of Texas - he's a member of the Black Caucus - Chuy Garcia of Illinois with the Hispanic Caucus, and Mark Pocan of Wisconsin, who's a leader among progressives.
SHAPIRO: It seems like the floodgates have opened in the last couple days. Do you have a sense of why?
DAVIS: You know, I do think Biden's COVID diagnosis is playing a small part here. It's a sense that this is a candidate that just can't catch a break and a reminder of his age and his health. I think more telling, Ari, is that there's been a wave of reporting. And credit to ABC and Axios here. But they've cited anonymous sources that top Democrats, like former President Obama, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and former speaker Nancy Pelosi, have all directly expressed to Biden that they don't think he can win. And it's telling because none of those offices are denying those reports to NPR. They're just offering opaque statements. Schumer's office just said he won't comment on, quote, "idle speculation." But there's a sense that they're tacitly giving the green light to lawmakers who are looking for that green light to do what they think they need to do.
SHAPIRO: And so how much support does he still have on Capitol Hill? I mean, are people speaking out in his favor?
DAVIS: He's certainly relying on longtime allies in the Black Caucus. Most Black lawmakers are still supporting him. It might come as a surprise that some of his most vigorous defense is coming from people like Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York. Late last night, she gave this lengthy explanation of how she sees the situation on her Instagram feed. And I think it sums up a way a lot of Biden allies are looking at this. She says, look, the divide is between the donor class, who want him out, and the voters who are actually still willing to vote for him, and that Biden getting out raises a ton of legal and logistical questions that no one has a good answer for, and that is more reckless. Here's a bit of it.
(SOUNDBITE OF INSTAGRAM VIDEO)
ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ: I'm not saying this is all a reason not to do it. But I do think that people are talking about this without having two eyes wide open as to what this really means.
DAVIS: She also said what is true for basically the entire Democratic Party right now. She said, I don't know what's going to happen - because remember, Ari, no one controls this process but Joe Biden.
SHAPIRO: And so if Joe Biden doesn't want to step down, is the entire Democratic Party unable to make that happen against his will?
DAVIS: Exactly. Not only is the DNC effectively the political arm of Biden's White House, but there's also nominating rules. Biden has the delegates who are bound to vote for him by those very rules to deliver the nomination on the first ballot. And to Ocasio-Cortez's point, there is no clear answer to what happens if Biden drops out. She is right. It would likely be a chaotic process, potentially one that further divides Democrats and undermines the whole party going into November. So what is so amazing about this moment is that so many Democrats are willing to say that's a risk they're willing to take.
SHAPIRO: You know, on Morning Edition today, we heard an analyst say, if Biden were to drop out over the weekend, there would effectively be no candidate and no campaign until the Democratic Convention a few weeks from now. Is that the case?
DAVIS: It largely is. I think one of the big questions right now is, what would Biden do when he gets out? Would he try to pass the baton to Vice President Kamala Harris and endorse her, or would he say to the party, it's up to the delegates in Chicago? You decide.
SHAPIRO: That's NPR political correspondent Susan Davis. Thanks, Sue.
DAVIS: You're welcome. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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