Democratic Party leaders desperately pleaded with rank-and-file committee members not to abandon President Joe Biden despite his disastrous debate performance.
During a secret call after the CNN debate in Atlanta on Thursday, Democratic National Committee Chairman Jaime Harrison and Biden campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez sought to allay concerns about the president’s viability as their 2024 candidate.
But those on the call say they are being manipulated by leaders who are asking them to ignore obvious signs of mental decline. They believe Biden, 81, may no longer be the best man for the job.
With the Democratic Convention just a month and a half away, many party members, strategists and donors are wondering if they should look for a replacement.
Meanwhile, Biden is back at Camp David after spending seven days there before the debate to prepare for the showdown. Reports claim that he is willing to speak to his family at the presidential retreat about his path forward.
Members of the Democratic Party feel “deceived” by party leaders after they attempted to calm concerns about President Joe Biden’s debate performance during a call about the upcoming convention.
According to a scathing report from NBC News, one person described Biden’s mood after the debate as humiliated and lacking confidence. And the president is aware that physical images of him, which showed a blank stare and an open mouth, will endure beyond his presidency.
Harrison downplayed the conference call during an interview with MSNBC. He said it was simply a regularly scheduled call “to discuss the state of the race” with elected officials across the country and discuss the upcoming national convention.
Harrison and Rodriguez, two of the Party’s most influential members, ignored Biden’s perceived weakness and gave what some participants described as an optimistic assessment of Biden’s future.
“I was hoping for a more substantive conversation rather than ‘Hey, let’s go out and just be entertainers,’ without really addressing a very serious issue that played out on American television for millions of people to see,” said Joe Salazar, an elected member of the Colorado Democratic National Committee who was on the call said, according to the Associated Press.
He added: “There were several things that could have been said to address the situation. But we didn’t succeed. They were gaslighting us.
While many of the calls for Biden to step aside have remained private over the past few months, now Democrats are saying the silent part out loud.
Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) went further than most Democrats when he said, “There are very honest, serious, rigorous conversations taking place at every level of our party.”
“We’re having a serious conversation about what to do,” he said in an interview on MSNBC’s Velshi show. “One thing I can tell you is that regardless of what President Biden decides, our party will be unified.”
“Whether or not he is the keynote speaker at our convention,” he added. “He will be the figure around whom we will unite to move forward and defeat the forces of authoritarianism and reaction in the country.”
President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden are back at the Camp David presidential retreat in Maryland to discuss the future after their debate. The first couple are pictured here with their granddaughters Finnegan and Natalie Biden after landing in Westhampton Beach, New York, on Saturday for a fundraiser.
Biden is scheduled to officially become the Democratic Party’s 2024 presidential nominee at the Convention in Chicago, Illinois, in mid-August. It’s unclear if that will continue to happen.
A sense of concern is growing in the upper echelons of the Democratic Party that leaders of Joe Biden’s campaign and the Democratic National Committee are not taking seriously enough the impact of the president’s troubling debate performance earlier in the week.
Democratic National Committee Chairman Jaime Harrison and Biden campaign manager Julie Chávez Rodríguez held a call Saturday afternoon with dozens of committee members from across the country, a group of some of the most influential members of the party. They largely ignored Biden’s weak performance Thursday night or the avalanche of criticism that followed.
Several committee members who participated in the call, most of whom were granted anonymity to speak about the private discussion, described feeling like they were being misled, that they were being asked to ignore the dire nature of the state’s situation. game. They said the call may have worsened a widespread sense of panic among elected officials, donors and other stakeholders.
Instead, the people said, Harrison offered what they described as an optimistic assessment of Biden’s path forward. The chat function was disabled and no questions were allowed.
Shortly after Saturday’s DNC call, the Biden campaign released a memo claiming the debate had no impact on the election.
“By every metric that matters, the data shows that he did nothing to change the perception of the American people, our supporters are more enthusiastic than ever, and Donald Trump only reminded voters why he was fired four years ago and failed to expand his appeal beyond his MAGA Base,” wrote Biden senior advisor Jen O’Malley Dillon.
“If we see changes in the polls in the coming weeks, it will not be the first time that exaggerated media narratives have caused temporary drops in the polls,” he added.