CNN
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Joe Biden’s family on Sunday encouraged the president to stay in the 2024 race and privately discussed whether top aides should be fired in the wake of Biden’s incredibly poor performance in the debates, which has plunged his campaign into turmoil.
Biden’s family, including first lady Jill Biden, his son Hunter Biden and their grandchildren, gathered at Camp David for a pre-scheduled meeting and implored the president to continue fighting for re-election, Biden advisers told CNN. One described family members as having offered their “unequivocal support”.
The family — clearly frustrated with the team that prepared President Biden ahead of his alarming debate with former President Donald Trump — has discussed whether one of Biden’s top advisers should be fired and whether changes to the campaign staff should be made, an adviser said.
Biden, however, is known for his loyalty and protection of his close advisers, and does not like to fire his aides. As of Sunday, no major personnel changes appeared to be expected.
The admiration and support Biden’s family showed the president on Sunday reflected the first lady’s effusive public praise of her husband in recent days.
The family gathering at the presidential retreat came as Biden and his campaign face an avalanche of calls for the president to step down after Thursday’s CNN presidential debate. The discussions also focused on how members of the Biden clan could help the president, not whether he should reconsider running, one of the advisers said.
Biden is eagerly collecting data — anecdotal evidence and public polling — but is awaiting a broader round of polling and research on the Democratic campaign this week, his advisers said, bracing for an expected slide in support in battleground states. The advisers preemptively blamed any drop on harsh media coverage, rather than Biden’s own performance.
The shock of the CNN debate has yet to sink in for many, with the president and his inner circle in the early stages of thinking about the immediate aftermath. The family’s view that Biden must keep fighting could change in the coming days if the downward spiral continues and the president is convinced that withdrawing from the race would prevent Democrats from falling this fall.
The views of Biden’s family would be crucial in determining his political future — even more so than those of the president’s small and notoriously insular circle of top advisers.
Those advisers are now under intense scrutiny, with party insiders openly wondering how they allowed the president to take the stage last week to confront Donald Trump knowing what they needed to know. The Biden team spent nearly a full week holed up at Camp David, trying to prepare the president for any scenario he might face in CNN’s Atlanta studio.
Biden and his family gathered Sunday for a long-planned photo op with celebrity photographer Annie Leibovitz. Senior advisers insisted to CNN Saturday that the meeting was not to discuss whether the president would stay in the race.
Anxiety over some key members of Biden’s staff has begun to show among the public. Florida attorney John Morgan, one of the Democratic Party’s most prolific and largest donors, chose senior adviser Anita Dunn and her husband, Bob Bauer, who is Biden’s personal attorney.
“Biden has been fooled for too long by the value of Anita Dunn and her husband. They need to go…TODAY,” Morgan wrote on X Sunday.
The White House declined to comment on Morgan’s post.
This story and headline have been updated with additional information.
