As poor debate showing roils Democrats, Bidens implore donors to stay course
President reportedly to discuss future of campaign with wife during family meet-up at Camp David after weekend spent trying to move past weak, confused performance against Trump
US President Joe Biden was in Camp David early Sunday, where he was reportedly expected to huddle with family about the future of his campaign following a lackluster debate performance that left many Democrats questioning his ability to remain as candidate for a second term in the White House.
The trip to Camp David followed a weekend swing spent by Biden attempting to recapture his mojo and reassure wealthy donors that he is fully up to the challenge of beating Republican Donald Trump.
The 81-year-old’s troubling performance at the first presidential debate Thursday rattled many Democrats, who see Trump after the January 6, 2021, insurrection as an existential threat to US democracy. Biden’s meandering answers and struggles to respond to Trump prompted The New York Times editorial board to declare Friday that he should exit the race and that staying in would be a “reckless gamble.”
Biden arrived at Camp David with First Lady Jill Biden and some of his grandchildren late Saturday after spending the day trying to pump up donors at a series of fundraising events.
“I didn’t have a great night, but I’m going to be fighting harder,” Biden told attendees of a fundraiser at the home of New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy. “Donald Trump is a genuine threat to the nation,” he emphasized, saying that his predecessor would undermine democracy if returned to the White House and his economic ideas would worsen inflation.
According to NBC News, Biden was expected to discuss his path ahead in the election with his wife, children and grandchildren while at Camp David for a pre-planned meet-up.
The report, citing anonymous sources, described Jill as having an outsized role in determining whether the president would remain in the race.
“The decision-makers are two people — it’s the president and his wife,” one source was quoted saying. “Anyone who doesn’t understand how deeply personal and familial this decision will be isn’t knowledgeable about the situation.”
The White House disputed the premise of the NBC report, noting that the get-together had been preplanned for a family photo.
NBC quoted a source saying no formal discussion of the campaign’s future was planned.
“Any discussion about the campaign is expected to be informal or an afterthought,” the source said. “No one is sitting down for a formal or determinative discussion.”
Biden was seen talking by phone with Jon Meacham, the historian, on his way Saturday night to Camp David.
The president and his campaign have sought to project confidence in the days since Thursday’s debate in which the president, who already faced serious concerns about his physical and mental stamina, offered a performance punctuated by repeated stumbles, uncomfortable pauses, and a quiet speaking style that was often difficult to understand.
The Bidens earlier attended an afternoon campaign event in East Hampton, New York, the Long Island beach town where the real estate firm Zillow prices the median home at $1.9 million. Based on public records, the event that was closed to the news media was at the home of Avram Glazer, an owner of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers football team.
The couple then went to a second event in East Hampton at the home of investor Barry Rosenstein, whose wife, Lizanne, said the president was “a role model for what it is to get knocked down over and over and over again and get up.”
“We can waste time comparing debate nights,” she continued. “But you know what? It’s more meaningful to compare presidencies.”
Addressing the gathering, Biden tore into Trump over his presidential record including his treatment of veterans and pointed to Trump’s own poor performance on Thursday night.
Biden contended that the polling he’s seen shows that Democrats moved up after the debate, saying of Trump: “The big takeaway was his lies.”
In the aftermath of that debate, Biden flashed more vigor in speeches in North Carolina and New York on Friday, saying he believes with “all my heart and soul” that he can do the job of the presidency.
The Biden campaign said it has raised more than $27 million on Thursday and Friday, including $3 million at a New York City fundraiser focused on the LGBTQ+ community.
Jill Biden told supporters Friday that he said to her after the debate, “You know, Jill, I don’t know what happened. I didn’t feel that great.” The first lady then said she responded to him, “Look, Joe, we are not going to let 90 minutes define the four years that you’ve been president.”
The Democratic president still needs to allay the fears stirred by the debate as it seeped into the public conscience with clips and memes spreading on the internet and public pressure for him to bow out of the race.
Many donors, party strategists and rank-and-file DNC members are publicly and privately saying they want Biden to step aside to allow the party to select a younger replacement at the Democratic National Convention in August. As of now, though, Biden’s closest allies insist he remains well-positioned to compete against Trump and have given no indication they will push him to end his campaign.
In a call Saturday a group of some of the most influential members of the party, Democratic National Committee Chairman Jaime Harrison and Biden campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez largely ignored Biden’s weak showing Thursday night or the avalanche of criticism that followed.
Multiple committee members on the call, most granted anonymity to talk about the private discussion, described feeling like they were being gaslighted — that they were being asked to ignore the dire nature of the party’s predicament. The call, they said, 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 a rosy assessment of Biden’s path forward.
Democratic donors across New York, Southern California and Silicon Valley have also privately expressed deep concerns about the viability of Biden’s campaign in the wake of his debate performance.
In a series of text message chains and private conversations, they discussed the short list of possible replacements, a group that included Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Vice President Kamala Harris.
Some donors noted they were going to pause their personal giving. They said receipts from Biden’s weekend fundraiser would almost certainly be strong because the tickets were sold and paid for before the debate.
Harris, Newsom and Whitmer all reiterated their support for Biden after the debate, and there are concerns over the logistical and optical challenges associated with replacing the presumptive nominee just four months before Election Day.
Many Democrats are anxiously awaiting the first major round of post-debate public polling to determine their next steps.
Polls from CNN and 538/Ipsos conducted soon after the debate found that most debate-watchers thought Trump outperformed Biden. But the two men’s favorability ratings remained largely unchanged, just as they did in the aftermath of Trump’s conviction on charges in New York that he illegally participated in a hush-money scheme to influence the 2016 election.
