Pressure is mounting for President Joe Biden to quit his bid for reelection because Democrats believe former President Donald Trump will not only beat him in November, but also sweep Republicans into control of Capitol Hill.
Yet just this morning, after multiple reports that Biden is on his way to dropping out, a campaign spokesman told MSNBC’s Morning Joe that the 81-year-old president will never quit.
Despite being vaccinated, the president is infected with Covid-19, recuperating in Delaware. He’s mulling over whether to listen to the party faithful who want him out before it’s too late.
Family Discussions
The Biden family is discussing the ailing president’s leaving the race, NBC reported this morning.
“The overall tone of the conversations has been that any exit plan — should Biden decide to take that step, as some of his closest allies increasingly believe he will — should put the party in the best position to beat former President Donald Trump while also being worthy of the more than five decades [Biden] has served the country in elected office,” two insiders told the network:
Biden’s family members have specifically discussed how he would want to end his re-election bid on his own timing and with a carefully calculated plan in place. Considerations about the impact of the campaign on his health, his family and the stability of the country are among those at the forefront of the discussions, the people familiar with those discussions said.
The prospect of Biden’s considering stepping aside, much less that his family is gaming out a possible exit plan, is an extraordinary development that comes after he has repeatedly said he would not relinquish his position as the presumptive nominee of the party.
Not surprisingly, White House spokesman Andrew Bates denied the report. “That is not happening, period,” he told NBC. And anyone who says otherwise doesn’t speak for the Biden Mafia and “will be proven wrong.”
On Morning Joe, one of the crucial members of Biden’s mainstream media information ministry, his campaign chief Jen O’Malley Dillon, said Biden isn’t quitting.
“Absolutely, the president’s in this race,” she told co-host Mika Brzezinski. “You’ve heard him say that time and time again.” Biden, who forgot Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin’s name and called him “the black man” on Wednesday, “is more committed than ever to beat Donald Trump.”
Continued O’Malley Dillon:
We believe in this campaign. We are built for the close election we are in and we see the path forward. He’s the best person to take on Donald Trump.
Former White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain told NBC likewise. “I think he’s feeling the pressure. I want him to stay in.”
Frighteningly, aside from relying on advice from wife “Dr.” Jill and his sister, Valerie Owens, Biden is listening to longtime sex and drug addict Hunter Biden.
Insiders: “Reality Is Setting In”
The New York Times offered a similar take yesterday, which is likely one reason O’Malley Dillon spoke to Morning Joe.
“Several people close to President Biden said on Thursday that they believe he has begun to accept the idea that he may not be able to win in November and may have to drop out of the race, bowing to the growing demands of many anxious members of his party,” the Times reported:
One of the people close to him warned that the president had not yet made up his mind to leave the race after three weeks of insisting that almost nothing would drive him out. But another said that “reality is setting in,” and that it would not be a surprise if Mr. Biden made an announcement soon endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris as his replacement.
Three recent “developments,” the Times continued, are moving the president toward quitting.
Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is warning him that he can’t win, Trump is ahead in the polls, and the “boycott of key party donors” is now crippling.
Biden’s team is discussing the “best timing and other details for an announcement if the president decides to give up his bid for a second term,” a source told the Times.
The news might land “as early as the next few days,” the paper continued. “The timing remain[s] in flux in part because Mr. Biden is in isolation at his vacation home.”
The Times noted that the list of Democrats who want Biden to quit is growing, and now includes hard-left Maryland Representative Jamie Raskin.
Still, Bates told the Times what he told NBC:
The president [said] he is the nominee of the party, he plans to win and looks forward to working with both of them to pass his 100-days agenda to help working families.
“He’s running for re-election, and that will not change until he wins re-election,” campaign spokesman T.J. Ducklo told the Times.
As well, the newspaper reported, “the mood inside the White House and at the president’s campaign headquarters in Wilmington, Del., was grim on Thursday as developments came in rapid-fire succession throughout the day.”
One development was Joe Scarborough’s message to Biden advisors. The host of Morning Joe said they must “step up at this point and help the president, and help the man they love, and do the right thing.”
The latest reports follow two others, as The New American has reported. First, former President Barack Hussein Obama has warned Democrats that Biden can’t win. And second, sources told Axios that Biden could drop out this weekend.
