President Joe Biden made a concerted effort on Friday to allay Democrats’ fears about his uncertain appearance in the controversy with former President Donald Trump, while elected members of his party closed ranks around him to silence discussions about replacing him at the highest of the ballot box.
Biden’s halting speech and rambling comments, especially early in the controversy, stoked fears even amongst members of his own party that, at 81, he was unfit to guide the country for an additional 4 years. It created a crisis moment for Biden’s campaign and his presidency, as members of his party flirted with possible successors and donors and supporters couldn’t contain their concerns about his performance against Trump.
Biden appeared to acknowledge the criticism during a rally in Raleigh, North Carolina, when he said, “I can’t debate as well as I used to.” But he added, “I know how to do this job. I know how to get things done.” Biden spoke for 18 minutes and seemed way more animated than the night before, when he slammed Trump for his “lies” and for his campaign aimed toward “vengeance and retribution.”
“The choice in this election is simple,” Biden said. “Donald Trump will destroy our democracy. I will defend it.”
Referring to his candidacy, he added: “When you get knocked down, you get back up.”
Even before the controversy, Biden’s age was seen as a liability amongst voters, and Thursday night’s confrontation looked as if it would reinforce deep-seated public concerns in front of perhaps the most important audience he’ll assemble within the 4 months leading as much as Election Day.
Privately, his campaign team tried to allay concerns and keep donors and surrogates on board. Democratic lawmakers acknowledged Biden’s weak performance on Friday but sought to shut down discussion of replacing him as their standard-bearer and as a substitute deal with Trump’s attacks and falsehoods.
“Well, the president did not have a good night, but neither did Donald Trump with lie after lie and his grim vision for America,” North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper told the Associated Press on Friday, hours before introducing the president in Raleigh. “We cannot send Donald Trump back to the White House. He is an existential threat to our nation.”
Former President Barack Obama supported his former vp, posting on X: “There are bad debate nights too.” Alluding to his own poor performance in the primary debate of his 2012 re-election campaign, Obama continued: “Trust me, I know. But this election is still a choice between someone who has spent his whole life fighting for the common people and someone who only cares about himself.”
He added: “Last night didn’t change that, and that’s why there’s so much at stake in November.”
House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries answered with a transparent “no” on Friday when asked whether Biden should resign.
Rep. Ritchie Torres, D-N.Y., admitted that he “had to take a few more antidepressants than usual” after Biden’s debate appearance.
However, he added: “A Donald Trump presidency would make me far more uncomfortable than a Joe Biden debate performance.”
Biden’s campaign described the event in Raleigh as the most important rally of his re-election campaign yet within the state that Trump narrowly won in 2020. He then traveled to New York for a weekend of major fundraising, which his campaign needs now greater than ever.
Biden’s campaign announced that it raised $14 million on the day of the controversy and the morning after. Trump’s campaign said it raised greater than $8 million from the beginning of the controversy to the top of the night.
Vice President Kamala Harris, sent by the Biden campaign to defend his performance, tried to reassure Biden’s supporters at a rally in Las Vegas on Friday, saying: “This race is not going to be decided in one night in June.”
“This race will be decided by you. By us,” she said. “Who sits in the White House next year will depend on what we do together in the next 130 days.”
Michael Tyler, communications director for Biden’s campaign, said there had been “no” internal discussions about Biden’s resignation, but additionally acknowledged that the president had a “bad night” on stage.
Democratic Rep. Emanuel Cleaver of Missouri said he had trouble sleeping due to the variety of phone calls he received following Biden’s “terrible” performance in the controversy.
“People were just worried. And I told everyone it’s healthy to be worried, overreaction is dangerous,” Cleaver said.
Rep. James Clyburn, a South Carolina Democrat whose support in that state helped Biden secure the Democratic nomination 4 years ago, said he would likely speak to Biden later Friday and his message could be easy: “Stay the course.”
Biden and his team have long bet that voters would overlook their concerns about his age and unpopularity after they reached the polls to make a choice from the president and Trump. Despite their concerns about Biden’s performance, they took comfort within the indisputable fact that Trump did little on Thursday to spice up his own appeal to voters.
Surveys by CNN And 538/Ipsos A poll taken shortly after the controversy found that the majority debate viewers thought Trump was higher than Biden, however the two men’s approval rankings remained largely unchanged, just as they did after Trump’s conviction.
Democrats took advantage of Trump’s evasiveness over whether he would accept the need of the voters this time, his refusal to sentence the rioters who stormed the Capitol on January 6, 2021, his try to make up for his 2020 loss to Biden, and his support for the conservative-leaning Supreme Court’s overturn of the Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion nationwide.
But Biden blundered on abortion rights, one of the vital vital issues for Democrats on this 12 months’s election. He was unable to elucidate Roe v. Wade, the landmark Supreme Court ruling that legalized abortion nationwide. A conservative Supreme Court with three justices nominated by Trump overturned Roe two years ago.
While elected Democrats publicly threw their support behind Biden, donors and party officials sent panicked text messages and phone calls Thursday night and Friday expressing concern that Biden’s performance was so poor that he won’t be electable in the autumn.
Among the few public Democratic voices calling on Biden to resign was congressional candidate Nancy Boyda of Kansas, who broke with most in her party and called on Biden to suspend his campaign and resign at the top of his current term.
But there have been no immediate signs of an organized effort amongst donors, his campaign leadership or the Democratic National Committee to get the president to resign, based on interviews with several individuals who spoke on the condition of anonymity to reveal confidential information.
Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat who’s steadily mentioned as a candidate for the 2028 presidential election and who has been speculated about as a possible successor to Biden, released a press release on Friday expressing his support.
“The difference between Joe Biden’s vision of giving everyone in America a fair chance and Donald Trump’s dangerous, self-serving plans will only become clearer as November progresses,” she said.
California Governor Gavin Newsom also dismissed questions on whether he would consider taking Biden’s place, telling reporters: “I will never turn my back on him.”
Under current Democratic Party rules, it will be difficult, if not unattainable, to exchange Biden because the party’s nominee without his cooperation or party officials willing to rewrite the principles on the national convention in August.
Trump planned to carry a rally Friday afternoon in Chesapeake, Virginia, a once-fighting area that has shifted in favor of Democrats in recent times but which his advisers consider could defect to Republicans in November.
