WASHINGTON — In meetings and calls over more than a week, President Joe Biden has responded to Democratic concerns about his candidacy with positive, conciliatory messages about the way forward, even sounding contrite at times about his shaky performance in a debate that prompted calls to end his reelection campaign.
He calmly answered straightforward questions about the acuity of his own mind, smiled when peers suggested he take a cognitive test or appoint someone younger to take his place as the Democratic nominee, agreed his supporters had legitimate concerns and promised to show them he could withstand the rigors of a presidential campaign and another four years in the White House.
And that was enough for him.
In recent days, Mr. Biden has privately begun to deliver a new message to Democrats: “The conversation about my future is over, and I’m frustrated that you don’t realize that.” He has also called some key allies individually to tell them to spread the message.
“I think we have a good plan to get through this,” a senior Biden aide said.
Nearly three weeks after a shaky debate performance that shook his party, Biden is eager to silence dissent within his Democratic Party as he moves forward and focuses on defeating Donald Trump. And after listening to his critics, he is solidifying support with the people he’s longest relied on and who support his path.
Campaigning in Detroit on Friday, Biden told a large, enthusiastic crowd, “You guys made me the candidate. No one else — not the press, not the pundits, not insiders, not donors,” revealing his growing patience with questions about his candidacy.
“And I’m not going anywhere,” Biden added.
He also made clear during a private conference call with Democratic lawmakers on Saturday that he was frustrated by the ongoing debate about whether he should continue in the campaign.
“Be confident that you are taking a defensive stance,” said a note one of Biden’s aides gave Biden during a call with members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, which the president read from the note. (Two people familiar with the call said Biden read the note intentionally to create an air of “lightness.”)
Later, on a conference call with the New Democrats coalition, a group of moderates facing a tough re-election fight, Biden grew frustrated at times, people familiar with the call said.
The president fired back after Colorado Democratic Rep. Jason Crow told Biden that “without significant changes, you will lose in November” and that many voters had lost confidence that he could “demonstrate strength and vigor and inspire confidence” as commander in chief in a second term, according to a person familiar with the call.
Rep. Adam Smith, a Democrat from Washington state who was on the call and has called on Biden to step aside, described the president as “defensive” and said, “The biggest problem is he said, ‘We’re fine.'”
“I think this goes against much of our current understanding of the facts,” Smith added.
One of the people familiar with Saturday’s call disputed the assertion that Biden was on the defensive, saying he actively sought input from lawmakers, telling them to “tell me things that you don’t think I should support.” [you]”Nobody knows the community better than you.”
The assassination attempt came just hours after Trump put some of the plans the president and his aides had been making to campaign on hold, but Biden is set to travel to Nevada on Tuesday as scheduled to attend an event this week focused on Black and Latino voters.
Biden, who likes to be compared to Franklin Roosevelt, instead aligned himself with Harry Truman’s famous line at the NAACP-sponsored event: “If you want a friend in Washington, get a dog.”
“The last few weeks have taught me what he meant,” he said.
“shutdown”
Biden kept a relatively low profile in the first week after the June 27 debate, headlining a rally the next day and holding a few preplanned fundraisers, but then largely disappeared from public view, consulting with family and aides and making calls to allies.
The following week, the president stepped up his outreach to key Democrats, giving prime-time interviews and holding nearly an hour-long news conference to ease their concerns as a presidential candidate.
According to five people familiar with the internal discussions, Trump has solidified his desire to continue his reelection campaign and further narrowed his already small circle of key advisers.
As the president and his team privately assess the gravity of his political situation, their discussions have also shifted to include the potential damage to his own historical standing, according to two Biden aides.
One ally said private conversations Biden had with aides last week were more “reality-based” than those in the days after the debate, including discussions of how Biden would be perceived if he ended his term in office in a protracted stalemate with his own party or if he lost to an opponent he said would undermine American democracy, two aides said.
“This does not reflect conversations between the president and his advisers,” White House spokesman Andrew Bates said in a statement.
The president and his team decided on their strategy by the end of last week, according to five people familiar with the internal discussions.
The strategy, several Biden aides and allies have described, is to run out the clock.
Biden aides are leaving Democrats little room to oust him, saying they hope the Republican National Convention will be a “tipping point” where Democrats start focusing on Trump instead of Biden.
“We’re hoping people will say, ‘Yes, he’s doing what we asked him to do and he’s doing it effectively,'” the aide said.
Another Biden aide described the approach this way: “Shut it down and let the time run out.”
White House aides expect more Democrats to urge the president to drop out of the race, but they also hope that if he can get through the next week or so without any major missteps or dismal poll numbers, the calls for his resignation will die down.
“The theme of the campaign is progress,” a Biden campaign official said. “We know the challenges we face and the work that needs to be done. It will take time and effort.”
Bates denied that the president and his aides were factoring the possibility of a major hostile development into their planning.
The process for Democrats to formally nominate their 2024 presidential candidate is set to begin later this month. Biden’s nomination is expected to be made in a virtual slate of state delegations in late July or early August before the Democratic National Convention on Aug. 19. Members of the Democratic National Committee are expected to set an exact date in the coming days..
Some of the president’s aides say the adversity facing the Biden team is, in some ways, fueling his desire to remain in the race.
“It’s energizing him,” a second Biden campaign official said.
But some of the president’s closest advisers said he might be willing to reconsider if a major development destabilized the race, according to three people familiar with the internal discussions.
Biden himself hinted as much during a press conference last Thursday: When asked if he might reconsider his decision to continue campaigning if aides presented him with specific data, Biden responded, “Not unless they come back and say, ‘You have no chance of winning.'”
“Nobody’s saying that,” he added. “The polls don’t say that either.”
The president has said he is open to reevaluating if polls show he cannot win or if serious health issues arise, but Bates denied that he would do so if there were major developments in the campaign.
Shrinking the inner circle
Under instructions to stay in the race, the president’s advisers are holding a daily conference call at 9 a.m. to discuss how to proceed, including whether the president’s efforts are enough. In recent days, they have also held a 9 p.m. call to assess the status of the efforts at the end of the day, according to a person familiar with the calls. The calls are led by White House Chief of Staff Jeff Zients.
In many of the discussions about his future, Mr. Biden has relied on his closest advisers, Steve Ricchetti and Mike Donilon, who he has worked with for decades, and on his family, who have encouraged him to stick with the candidacy, according to five people familiar with the matter, and has increasingly excluded other aides from the discussions, including campaign co-chair Jennifer O’Malley Dillon and senior adviser to the president, Anita Dunn.
“The circle is smaller than it’s ever been,” said one of the people familiar with the matter.
White House spokesman Bates said in a statement that Biden is proud of the team he has built and “is making no changes to the advisory board he will consult with.”
“The president has had extensive and frank discussions with members of Congress, governors, mayors, labor leaders, advocacy groups and others,” Bates said.
One aide said Dunn was working closely with Bruce Reed, a longtime Biden adviser, to develop a plan to focus on the president’s future challenges, including a plan for the first 100 days of a second term if re-elected.
A strategy to resolve the question of whether Biden should remain the Democratic nominee would involve a combination of strengthening public support for him and trying to stave off further defections.
Last week, for example, Biden campaign co-chair Jeffrey Katzenberg tried unsuccessfully to block leading Democratic fundraiser George Clooney from calling on Biden to withdraw. The actor had personally notified the Biden campaign in advance of plans to publish a scathing op-ed in The New York Times, according to three people familiar with the effort.
Meanwhile, Biden aides were in Detroit last Friday and in Nevada on Tuesday meeting with high-profile allies, including influential Rep. James Clyburn.
Biden aides say internal campaign polling since the debate has not shown any dramatic change in the race.
But some of the data received by reelection campaign activists in battleground states is worrying Democrats, and more polls on Democratic trends in House and Senate races are expected to be released soon.
“The president’s approval rating is falling sharply in the battleground states and districts Democrats need to hold onto the Senate and win the House,” said one Democratic strategist who reviewed recent internal polling in several battleground states and swing seats. The strategist said the polls show a 5-10 point drop from the last poll.
Veteran Democrat Simon Rosenberg has disputed the idea that the polls show Biden losing by a large margin, saying if there is evidence it should be publicly examined.
“You have to be a little careful with the data,” Rosenberg said, referring to Friday’s 538 projections that showed Biden had a slightly better chance of winning November’s presidential election than Trump. “There hasn’t been a major change in the race, which is what we all believed on Saturday after the debate.”