President Joe Biden has told a key ally that his re-election campaign against former President Donald Trump could also be irrecoverable if he cannot address concerns about his fitness for office in the approaching days. The New York Times first reported on it on Wednesday.
The unnamed ally said Biden continues to be committed to the re-election fight but is aware that his upcoming public appearances must go well after his disastrous presidential debate with Trump last week.
“He knows if he has two more events like this, we'll be in a different place at the end of the weekend,” the ally told the Times.
The Times quoted one among Biden's top advisers, who also asked to not be identified, as saying the president was “well aware of the political challenge he faces.”
Later on Wednesday, CNN reported that Biden acknowledged his dangerous situation in an identical conversation with an ally. “He recognizes the moment. He is clear-sighted,” that ally told CNN.
It was unclear whether the 2 networks were reporting on the identical conversation. CNBC and NBC News haven’t independently confirmed the reports.
In a phone call with the campaign team on Wednesday, Biden reiterated that he’s staying within the race.
“Let me say this as clearly as possible, as simply and directly as possible: I am running,” Biden said, an official told NBC News on the conference call.
“Nobody is pushing me out,” he said. “I'm not leaving. I'm in it until the end and we're going to win.”
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre reiterated during a briefing on Wednesday afternoon that Biden is “absolutely not” considering resigning.
Biden spokesman Andrew Bates had previously denied the Times report.
“This claim is absolutely false,” said Bates wrote on the social media site X“If the New York Times had given us more than seven minutes to comment, we would have told them.”
The reported conversations got here amid ongoing fallout from Biden's debate performance, with the 81-year-old incumbent struggling to obviously articulate his positions and defend himself against claims made by his 78-year-old rival.
Biden's lack of energy and focus in the talk has caused great panic amongst his allies and donors, with increasingly more of them now considering whether Biden should drop out of the race.
Much of the anxious discussion revolved around whether Vice President Kamala Harris could replace Biden because the party's nominee.
CNBC reported Wednesday that a gaggle of donors to Harris' previous political campaigns – for the 2020 presidential election, the 2016 Senate and before that, state office – have secretly begun strategizing on how best to position the vp to quickly eliminate any competition for the nomination should Biden drop out.
Although few Democrats have publicly called on Biden to resign, the president's key political allies in Congress, including Reps. Nancy Pelosi and James Clyburn, have declined to defend Biden's performance, saying as a substitute that the talk raised legitimate questions on the president's fitness to serve one other 4 years in office.
Biden is scheduled to fulfill with Democratic governors on the White House late Wednesday to persuade them of his ability to proceed serving because the party's likely nominee.
On Friday, the president can be scheduled to conduct a one-on-one interview with ABC News' George Stephanopoulos. The interview is not going to be broadcast live, nonetheless. The first clip will air on Friday, and a more detailed interview is planned for Sunday, ABC said.
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