The report comes after Rep. Adam Schiff became the most prominent Democrat to publicly urge Biden to drop out of the presidential race.
According to media reports, top US Democratic Party leaders, including Chuck Schumer, Hakeem Jeffries and Nancy Pelosi, have expressed concerns to President Joe Biden about his ability to win the presidential election in November.
ABC News reported on Wednesday that Senate Democratic Leader Schumer and House Democratic Leader Jeffries had told Biden, 81, to withdraw from the presidential race.
ABC reported, citing sources close to both men, that Schumer had a “frank conversation” with the president in Delaware on Saturday and “argued that it would be best for Biden to withdraw from the 2024 presidential race.”
ABC reported, citing people familiar with the matter, that Hakim had expressed a similar sentiment directly to Biden, suggesting he should drop out of the race.
Meanwhile, CNN reported that in a recent phone call, former House Speaker Pelosi said that polls show Biden cannot beat his opponent, Donald Trump, and that if Biden continues to seek a second term, it could even destroy Democrats’ chances of winning the House of Representatives in November.
The agency cited four sources briefed on the call.
But the sources said they had no say in whether Pelosi had told Biden that the president should back down.
The report came shortly after Rep. Adam Schiff of California became the most high-profile Democrat to publicly urge Biden to forgo reelection, and a new Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Policy Research poll found that nearly two-thirds of Democrats nationwide want the president to step aside and nominate another candidate.
Schumer’s office responded to reports of a meeting with the president with a statement calling it “unfounded speculation” and saying the Senate Democratic leader “conveyed his partisan position directly to President Biden on Saturday.”
A spokesman for Pelosi told CNN that she has not spoken to Biden since Friday.
White House press secretary Andrew Bates said Biden told Schumer and Jeffries “I am the nominee of my party, I intend to win, and I look forward to working with them to pass a 100-day package to help working families.”
Biden, who tested positive for COVID-19 on Wednesday, has repeatedly rejected calls from Democrats to quit the race following his lackluster performance in last month’s debate with Trump.
He said in a recent interview that only “God Almighty” could convince him to drop out of the election.
The White House said the president is currently self-isolating in Delaware but “remains fully operational.”
The White House said Biden was experiencing “mild symptoms” from the infection and was suffering from “general fatigue.”
Arshad Hasan, a Democratic political strategist and founder of Convey Communications, told Al Jazeera there was widespread “concern” behind the scenes at all levels of the party about the president’s chances of winning.
“As Democrats, we understand the stakes are extremely high,” he said.
“The contrast between the visions of these two candidates couldn’t be greater and couldn’t be starker. Four years of Trump were terrible – we had a pandemic, unrest in the streets, a terrible economy. And four years of Biden have seen growth and recovery like no other country has ever seen,” he said from Los Angeles.
“It’s creating a contrast not just in the economy but also in what the future of our democratic society should look like. The stakes are so high that people are very concerned and very sensitive to the odds of whether we win or not.”
