As President Joe Biden struggles to survive the political crisis that has surrounded his campaign, he has faced two bad trends in recent days.
First, major media outlets published several new stories raising difficult questions about Biden’s age and ability to govern. The floodgates have opened for leaks, reporters are scrutinizing the matter and the president is no longer getting the benefit of the doubt.
Second, some Democratic elected officials have finally begun openly discussing that Biden might drop the ticket — and some are calling for him to do so outright.
For now, the majority of the Democratic Party is behind Biden and he Maintained on Wednesday That he remains in the competition. But anxious discussions continue within the party about what should be done, especially in the wake of this New polling Donald Trump looks to extend his lead.
What is being reported about Biden’s age and ability
Before the debate, big media such as Dr The New York Times And The Wall Street Journal Will occasionally report on questions of Biden’s age and health, gathering accounts of what the president is like behind closed doors from colleagues and others who have met him privately.
Often, such reports paint a mixed picture, finding that Biden had occasional mix-ups and verbal flubs and sometimes appeared completely on task. And invariably, Democrats responded to these reports with sharp criticism.
Since the controversy, however, coverage of the issue has risen to a new level of intensity — and the leaks have been coming fast and furious.
a brutal New York Times story The paper, published Tuesday, described what it called Biden’s “lapses” — which their sources claim have become “more frequent, more glaring and more alarming” recently.
Among such lapses, Times reporters’ sources claimed, Biden would sometimes respond “listlessly,” “lose the thread of the conversation” or “with blank-stare confusion.” At other points, they say, Biden will appear “absolutely at the top of his game.”
of Axios Alex Thompson reports Aides believed that Biden was “reliably engaged” between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. — but outside of that time, Biden was “more likely to make verbal mistakes and be tired.” (Thompson added that aides “generally” see Biden as “engaged” and brushed off “flashes” of absent-mindedness as “typical brain farts.”)
The legendary reporter Carl Bernstein said on CNN That, in the past year and a half, “there have been 15 to 20 incidents” on which Biden has been as undisclosed as he was during the debate. He identified instances where Biden lost his train of thought and was unable to “pick it up again.”
The The Wall Street Journal reported that some senior European diplomats said “they have noticed a noticeable deterioration in the president’s faculty in meetings since last summer.” And Financial Times reported That, during a meeting between Biden and EU leaders earlier this year, the president opened and ended the meeting by telling the same anecdote.
Such incidents look juicy when they come from anonymous leaks. But the reality is that many Bidens event There are various points like this happened In public and has been Earlier report.
What changed was that many Biden-sympathetic observers tended to see them as characterless or unrepresentative. A common response was: So what if he mixed up a name or forgot something? It does not jeopardize his rule.
Now, the controversy has changed the narrative around such events — arguably so, given that Biden’s poor performance there risks his reelection. What may have waved away as harmless blips now looks like a devastating chronic weakness.
Will this change anything?
While left-of-center commentators called for Biden to step down after the debate, his support among elected Democratic officials has largely held up so far.
But a few cracks in that support began to appear on Tuesday and Wednesday.
representative Lloyd Doggett (D-TX) and Raul Grijalva (D-AZ) called on Biden to drop out. representative Jared Golden (D-ME) and Marie Glusenkamp Perez (D-WA), who represent conservative districts, both opined that Biden could not win.
Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), and Representative Mike Quigley (D-IL) All said Biden needs to do more to ease concerns about his performance. Sen. Peter Welch (D-VT) characterized Biden’s campaign as too dismissive of legitimate concerns.
The Washington Post Report That Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) came close to rejecting Biden over the weekend, but talked himself out of it for now — and reported that former President Barack Obama did. Speaking suspiciously in private Biden is likely to go ahead.
representative James Clyburn (D-SC) and Summer Lee (D-PA) both said they would support Vice President Kamala Harris as the nominee if Biden drops out. fame Jamie Raskin (D-MD) said discussions on the best path to defeat Trump “are happening very quickly.” Clyburn too said There could be a “mini-primary” in the weeks leading up to the Democratic convention in late August to determine Biden’s replacement, though he stressed that was a hypothetical scenario.
Discontent comes in one of these vortexes New York Times/Siena Poll Released Wednesday, Biden trails Trump by 6 percentage points among likely voters and 8 points among registered voters.
Biden has done little to calm these concerns by avoiding unscripted public settings since the debate. But he seating plan Friday for an interview with ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos. Anything less than a stellar performance will further derail his political future.
