Joe Biden has revealed the only reason he would drop out of the presidential race as more Democrats call for him to step aside.
He said it would be necessary for his doctor to tell him directly that he had a medical condition that made it necessary.
“If I had some medical condition that came up, if somebody, if doctors came to me and said, you have this problem and that problem,” Biden said in an interview with BET News.
The president’s physician, Dr. Kevin O’Connor, said Biden, 81, is mentally and physically fit to serve as commander in chief.
But Democrats have questioned Biden’s suitability for the job since his debate performance against Donald Trump, where he stumbled and stared into the camera.
President Joe Biden Reveals to BET News What It Would Take for Him to Drop Out of the Race
Biden has repeatedly changed the conditions that would be required for him to step aside.
He told ABC News he would only drop out if the “Lord Almighty” told him to. At a news conference in Washington DC, he said he would stay in the race unless his advisers presented him with evidence that he could never win.
In his interview with BET’s Ed Gordon, Biden first said he hoped to “leave the presidency behind” and “pass it on to someone else” after one term, but decided to run again because he believed his “wisdom” and experience would help heal the country.
“You may remember, Ed, that I said I was going to be a transitional candidate and I thought I could put this behind me and hand it over to someone else,” Biden said. “But I didn’t expect things to get so, so, so divided. And frankly, I think the only thing age brings is a little wisdom.”
He added that “there is much more to do and I am reluctant to walk away from that.”
The full interview with BET is scheduled to air at 10 p.m. Eastern time on Wednesday night.
Meanwhile, Biden was hit Wednesday with a brutal new poll showing a majority of Democrats want him to drop out of the presidential race even as the party prepares to secure his nomination.
An AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research survey found that 65% of Democrats want Biden to drop out of the race and allow the party to nominate another candidate. It also found that only 3 in 10 Democrats are confident in his mental ability to serve as president.
The results undermine Biden’s claim that “average Democrats” want him to stay in the race and only “the elite” want him out.
Biden has spent the past two weeks trying to calm the rising tide of anti-Democratic sentiment, but polling since his disastrous debate with Donald Trump shows he has been unable to convince Democrats to stick with him.
Donald Trump at the Republican National Convention
He argues that many voters are still not paying attention to the race.
“The point is, we’re just now getting close to game time,” Biden told BET News in an interview Tuesday.
The poll provides some evidence that Black Democrats are among Biden’s strongest supporters: About half of respondents say he should continue to run, compared with about 3 in 10 white and Hispanic Democrats.
The poll also shows the different support Biden and Trump have across their parties: only 37% of Democrats believe Biden can win, while 72% of Republicans believe Trump can.
The poll comes as Democrats are set to nominate Biden for re-election in a virtual roll call vote but will delay setting a date for the delegate vote after many Democrats raised objections to the planned process.
The new date for voting for delegates will be the first week of August, shortly before the convention begins in Chicago.
The party’s Rules Committee said it intends to complete Biden’s nomination by Aug. 7 to avoid any risk of a legal challenge to putting him on the ballot in Ohio.
A letter from the co-chairs of the party’s convention rules committee, Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota and longtime Democratic Party official Leah Daughtry, says no virtual voting will begin before Aug. 1.
“No matter what is said, our goal is not to rush the process,” they write in the letter, according to the New York Times. “Our goals are to maintain our tradition of transparency, our commitment to an effective nomination process that results in a candidate in every statewide election, and ultimately to put our candidates on the path to victory in November.”
The two leaders sought to reassure the party after House Democrats resumed their coup against the president.
Democrats worried after Joe Biden’s performance in the first debate against Donald Trump
Lawmakers challenged the original timeline for Biden’s virtual nomination, which would have seen him locked in as the nominee in the coming weeks.
Under party rules, the vast majority of the more than 4,600 delegates to the party convention are required to vote for Biden on the first ballot, regardless of when that vote takes place.
Biden cannot be forced to resign and must choose to step down voluntarily.
He shows no signs of coming out.
“Look, 14 million people voted for me as the Democratic Party’s nominee, OK?” the president told NBC News. “I hear you.
