President Biden has defiantly remained in the presidential race despite mounting calls from allies to drop out, and speculation that he would bow out as early as this weekend.
The Biden campaign has hit back against anonymous sources and speculation that Biden would end his campaign in the coming days, suggesting a pressure campaign was building to force Biden’s hand.
‘There are a lot of anonymous sources out there this week telling y’all what is and isn’t happening on Team Biden-Harris. I’m here – on the record (!) – to give you an overview of what actually happened, what’s to come, and a few thoughts on the very bad things coming out of the Republican National Convention,’ Biden campaign spokesman Kevin Muonoz said in a press release late last week.
The comment was released shortly following Newsmax’s Mark Halperin reporting that unnamed Democratic sources informed him that Biden will drop out of the race as soon as this weekend, that he would not endorse Vice President Kamala Harris to take the mantle, and would call for an open convention during the Democratic National Convention in Chicago next month.
‘It will happen as early as this weekend. A speech has been drafted for him. He will continue on as president, is his intention. He also will not, I’m told, endorse Vice President Harris as his successor. They’re hoping that he will endorse an open process in which the convention will be open to Vice President Harris and a few other candidates in Chicago to pick the Democratic nominee for president,’ Halperin said on Thursday.
Axios also speculated the president would drop out this weekend, with unnamed Biden aides allegedly saying the president was warming up to the idea of giving into the calls to bow out.
The Biden campaign, however, has so far not given an inch on the speculation and calls for the president to drop out, with campaign and White House officials shooting down speculation on social media, releasing press releases and continuing to announce fundraising efforts.
Biden’s deputy campaign manager doubled down on Sunday that reports of the president dropping out are ‘false’ and that Biden has been clear he is remaining in the race.
‘It is false. And I think that it is false to continue to try to gin up this narrative. Joe Biden has said he is in this race,’ deputy campaign manager Quentin Fulks said on MSNBC on Sunday. ‘He is in this race to win it. He is instructing us to continue to carry out a plan to make sure that we are communicating [to as] many voters as possible. Actions speak louder than words, although sometimes, in this case, I wish that our words would speak louder so that people would stop asking this question. But we are doing both. The president has doubled down and said that he is running in this race to win it, and that he is not going anywhere.’
Biden is currently self-isolating in his home in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, after he was diagnosed with COVID-19 on Wednesday. He was diagnosed while in Las Vegas, forcing the campaign to cancel events in the city as the president recovers.
Thirty-six Democrats have called on Biden to drop out of the race in the days and weeks following his disastrous debate performance, which put his mental fitness under further scrutiny as he stumbled over his words and appeared more subdued than in previous years.
Ahead of his COVID diagnosis, Biden hit the campaign trail at a faster clip than before the debate, holding rallies and meetings across the nation, coupled with his official duties as president, including hosting world leaders for a NATO summit earlier this month. Biden delivered a stronger than typical speech during the NATO summit, and received mixed reviews for his first solo press conference of the year. The events, however, have evidently not swayed Democrats that he’s up for the job, as traditional allies continue releasing statements calling on him to drop out.
‘While the choice to withdraw from the campaign is President Biden’s alone, I believe it is time for him to pass the torch. And in doing so, secure his legacy of leadership by allowing us to defeat Donald Trump in the upcoming election,’ California Rep. Adam Schiff said in a statement last week.
Despite speculation Biden would drop out as soon as this weekend, the New York Times reported that the president will not drop out ahead of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Nentanyahu’s visit to the nation’s capital this week.
The president also has a fundraiser scheduled with former late night host David Letterman on July 29 in Hawaii and has received support from Squad members to remain in the race.
‘There have been lots of Democrats who have been giving little anonymous quotes to the press, to some journalist to print, and I’m not here to knock the press on it,’ she said. ‘I’m here to knock my colleagues on it, because to me, I think that’s, and I’m sorry, I’m going to say because it’s after midnight. That’s bulls—. Like, if you have an opinion, say it with your chest and say it in public,’ Squad member, New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, said last week in defense of Biden.
The chair of the Democratic National Committee, Jamie Harrison, has also notably not called for Biden to pull out of the race, instead saying earlier this month that Biden is the party’s nominee.
‘This ain’t the West Wing… we have had a process, millions voted for Joe Biden and we have our nominee!’ Harrison tweeted on July 2.
Biden is not yet the official nominee for the ticket, but is expected to be formally nominated in a virtual roll call on Aug. 7, DNC Rules Committee members voted Friday. The move leaves Democrats with roughly two weeks to rally renewed support for Biden as their nominee, or for Biden to drop out and let another candidate step up to the job.
The speculation mounting around Biden dropping out comes as former President Trump was officially nominated as the Republican Party’s choice for president. Trump joined the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, last week, where he announced Ohio Sen. JD Vance as his running mate and accepted the nomination.
The RNC was held just two days after an assassination attempt nearly ended Trump’s life, leaving him with an injury to his right ear. A shooter opened fire on Trump’s rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, last Saturday, injuring Trump and two others, and killing a 50-year-old married dad who was protecting his wife and family from the gunfire.
Trump addressed the shooting in his highly-anticipated RNC speech, while noting ‘you’ll never hear it from me a second time, because it’s actually too painful to tell.’
‘I’m not supposed to be here tonight,’ he said. ‘I stand before you in this arena only by the grace of almighty God. And watching the reports over the last few days, many people say it was a providential moment. Probably was.’
‘For the rest of my life, I will be grateful for the love shown by that giant audience of patriots that stood bravely on that fateful evening in Pennsylvania,’ he added.