Biden to Meet Governors, Sit for Interview in Bid to Calm Revolt

President Joe Biden this week plans to meet with Democratic governors and lawmakers, travel to two battleground states and sit for his first televised interview since his disastrous debate performance in an attempt to reassure anxious supporters.

The peril Biden faces as he presses on with his reelection bid only heightened on Tuesday, when Lloyd Doggett of Texas became the first sitting US House Democrat to call on him to exit the race and new polls showed the president’s support fading. That underscored the need for Biden to do more to close his party’s ranks.

Biden’s meeting Wednesday with governors is expected to be held virtually, with many joining via video call, according to people familiar with the matter. ABC News anchor George Stephanopoulos will interview Biden on Friday.

Biden plans to travel on Friday to Wisconsin and to Philadelphia on Sunday then hold a press conference next week at the NATO summit in Washington, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre announced Tuesday. The president is also expected to speak with leaders on Capitol Hill, she said.

“We’re going to turn the page. We’re going to get out there across the country. Americans are going to see him for themselves,” Jean-Pierre told reporters.

The effort is meant to counter brewing discontent among leading Democratic donors, aides and elected officials over Biden’s debate performance, which has deepened their fears that former President Donald Trump will return to the White House. 

Three quarters of US voters said Democrats would have a better chance of retaining control of the White House if someone else was atop the ticket, according to a CNN poll released Tuesday. Biden polled worse in head-to-head match ups than other prominent Democrats — including governors like California’s Gavin Newsom and Michigan’s Gretchen Whitmer — who are expected to be on Wednesday’s call. Prominent Democrats have begun to wonder aloud about Biden’s mental state.

“It is a legitimate question to say, is this an episode or is it a condition?” former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Tuesday on MSNBC. “So when people ask that question it is legitimate, of both candidates.”

The governors meeting, reported earlier by CBS News, is a chance for Biden to persuade them he should remain the party’s standard bearer as some privately harbor concerns about Biden’s viability. Whitmer said Monday she stands behind the president, pushing back against suggestions there were tensions between her team and Biden’s. 

Despite the fears about Biden’s candidacy in many corners of the Democratic Party, no top lawmakers, governors and Cabinet officials have publicly said the president should end his campaign. Newsom and Illinois Governor JB Pritzker have also issued statements that are supportive of Biden. 

‘Too Much Is at Stake’

News of the meeting with Biden came a day after Democratic governors held their own call, during which some expressed concern about the president and said they wanted to speak to him, CNN reported. Biden’s team was in touch with the governors and their staffs about Monday’s meeting, according to a Democratic official.

Vice President Kamala Harris also plans to have lunch with Biden on Wednesday, according to a White House official. The two have shared midday meals on a semi-regular basis but the sit-down comes at a time when she has also been mentioned as a possible stand-in for Biden. 

Biden, however, received unwelcome news on Tuesday when Doggett released his statement saying Democrats should not “assume that what could not be turned around in a year, what was not turned around in the debate, can be turned around now.”

“Too much is at stake to risk a Trump victory,” Doggett said. 

The president and his team have sought to shift the public’s focus away from his mental fitness and onto Trump’s conduct following the Supreme Court’s decision that the former president is partially immune from criminal prosecution. That argument represents Biden’s narrow path to victory, but thus far his case has fallen flat with voters.

The president in a Monday speech at the White House called on voters to “render a judgment” on whether the presumptive Republican nominee’s involvement in his supporters’ Jan. 6, 2021 assault on the US Capitol makes him “unfit for public office.” 

Blame Game

Biden’s team also touted his $127 million June fundraising haul to counter post-debate angst. That’s $15 million more than Trump raised last month, though the Republican now has a cash advantage. Campaign officials, including chairwoman Jennifer O’Malley Dillon, on Monday held a question-and-answer session with donors aimed at reassuring them that Biden has a path to victory, according to people familiar with the call.

After acknowledging the debate went poorly, Biden’s campaign went on the offensive against party figures and media personalities who have called on him to drop out of the 2024 race, labeling them disloyal “bed wetters.”

Members of Biden’s family and donors have also blamed the president’s close-knit circle of advisers for last Thursday’s debacle against Trump. But Biden’s apparent refusal to even consider a campaign shake up has rattled outside Democrats who are calling for a course correction. 

The Democratic National Committee is considering formally nominating Biden as soon as mid-July, according to people familiar with the matter. The move is intended to ensure that Biden makes the ballot in all 50 states this November, but it could also help stamp out talk about replacing him. A potential date for Biden’s nomination is July 21 when a key party panel is scheduled to meet virtually, the people said. 

Democrats already planned to nominate Biden before the party’s convention in August to meet a ballot certification deadline in Ohio. But the timing is fortuitous in that it allows the party to officially close ranks around the president within the next three weeks. 

With assistance from Billy House and Nacha Cattan.

This article was generated from an automated news agency feed without modifications to text.