Biden inner circle shifts ‘moment to moment’ as defections grow

REHOBOTH BEACH, Delaware — Joe Biden’s campaign chair insisted on Friday that the president is remaining in the race even as the cascade of Democratic defections continue.

In an appearance on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” Jen O’Malley Dillon acknowledged that Biden’s candidacy had suffered from “some slippage of support” since the debate, as concerns spiked among both Democratic officials and voters over his age and mental acuity.

But she argued that Biden has proven since then that he’s capable of running an aggressive race, urging Democrats to reunify behind him and shift their focus back onto attacking former President Donald Trump.

“The president is in this race, you’ve heard him say that time and time again,” O’Malley Dillon said. “We believe, on this campaign, we are built for the close election that we’re in. And we see the path forward.”

But by the afternoon, nine new House Democrats and another Senate Democrat had already called for Biden to drop out, including key figures in the party’s left flank.

The defiant message came even as the intentions of the Biden family and closest advisers seem to shift “moment to moment,” according to two people who were granted anonymity because they are not authorized to speak publicly about private conversations.

Biden is facing intensifying pressure across the Democratic Party to step aside, fueled by worries he’s falling further behind Trump in the polls and could also jeopardize efforts to win the House and Senate.

Reps. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.), Chuy Garcia (D-Ill.), Marc Veasey (D-Texas) and Mark Pocan (D-Wis.) said in a joint message to Biden Friday that “it is now time for you to pass the torch to a new generation of Democratic leaders.” The headline of an op-ed from Rep. Sean Casten (D-Ill.) in the Chicago Tribune used the same “pass the torch” phrase and separately cited Democratic voters’ “tremendous fear” that Trump will win the White House.

“It breaks my heart to say it, but Biden is no longer up for that job,” he wrote .

Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) issued his own statement shortly afterward that repeated the "pass the torch" language, adding that “I believe it is in the best interests of our country for him to step aside." Later on Friday, Reps. Greg Landsman (D-Ohio), Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), Betty McCollum (D-Minn.) and Kathy Castor (D-Fla.) also called for Biden to end his campaign.

More Democratic lawmakers are expected to publicly air their own concerns in coming days, according to a senior Hill Democrat granted anonymity to discuss private conversations. But a handful of additional defections by longer tenured Democratic senators with years-long relationships with the president would have a much larger impact, the Democrat said.

The delicate goal, the Democrat added: Create enough public pressure to force the president's hand, while allowing him some measure of dignity so that it appears he came to the decision on his own.

"He has to say, 'I know I'm not going to win,'" another Democrat involved in the discussions said of Biden. Despite the building pressure, "it doesn't matter if at the end of the day you don't have the guy himself coming up to the podium."

Biden is isolating while recovering with Covid and therefore speaking to allies, and even his closest aides, solely by the phone, according to the two people. He has at times continued to push the notion that because he has beaten Trump once, he can again, while at other times he has asked allies whether they think Vice President Kamala Harris can defeat the Republican nominee.

The White House called a lid on Friday morning, signaling for the second straight day that the president would not be seen in public. Biden's Covid symptoms had "improved meaningfully," though he continued to take Paxlovid, his physician wrote in a letter that the White House released Friday afternoon.

Biden’s inner circle has grown angry this week against the seemingly coordinated move by Democratic leaders — including some longtime friends — to push him from the race. At the same time, some close to the president began to have private conversations in which they entertained for the first time that the party’s best path might be for Biden to step aside, according to the two people and another Democrat familiar with the campaign dynamics.

"They really feel like they're being betrayed," said a senior Democratic lawmaker who has spoken with the Biden team, granted anonymity to discuss internal conversations.

Still, there's "a lot of discussion" in the president's orbit about how to proceed, the lawmaker said, and growing awareness that a definitive decision as to whether Biden stays in or gets out must be made by the end of the week.

Publicly, Biden’s aides maintain they’ve given no thought to changing course.

In a Friday statement responding to Trump's speech at the Republican convention, Biden said he planned to be back on the campaign trail next week.

"Together, as a party and as a country, we can and will defeat him at the ballot box," Biden said. "The stakes are high, and the choice is clear."

O'Malley Dillon said on MSNBC that the campaign still sees "multiple pathways to victory, and we can do that by really reaching these voters."

“At the end of the day, it’s going to take all of us unifying and moving forward," she said.

Pressed for evidence that Biden could come back from the damaging last few weeks, O’Malley Dillon pointed to recent conversations with voters across battleground states, claiming that more than three-quarters of the roughly 100,000 voters the campaign had talked to indicated they’re supporting Biden.

She also downplayed polling showing Biden slipping further behind Trump nationally and in swing states, contending that the vast majority of voters had already made up their minds about who to support — and that the debate did little to alter their opinions.

“The impression of the president is very hardened,” O’Malley Dillon said. “People know and are baked, and that’s why the movement has been pretty little since the debate, because they know who Joe Biden is.”

White House spokesperson Andrew Bates also denied that Biden and his inner circle are considering dropping out, saying anyone suggesting otherwise has "no idea what they are talking about."

Biden did get a boost overnight from Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), who reiterated her support for Biden and argued there’s too little time to consider an alternative candidate.

“I have not seen a scenario, an alternative scenario, that I feel does not set us up for enormous peril,” she said on Instagram Live, adding that she has little faith the party could smoothly swap in Harris as the new nominee.

“If you think that there is consensus among people who want Joe Biden to leave … you would be mistaken,” she said, pointing to a swath of Democrats who “are interested in removing the whole ticket.”

Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.), a close Biden ally, also reiterated his support for the president, telling POLITICO in an interview that the only reason he’d change his mind is if Biden does first. But he declined to criticize Democrats calling for Biden to drop out, saying only that the party needs to coalesce behind a nominee before the Democratic convention in August.

“Everybody’s got a right to do their own thing with this,” he said. “We can have all the debate we want to have this week or next week or the week after that, but this issue must be behind us before we get to Chicago.”