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Democratic senator says Trump is on track to win as Pelosi says Biden must ‘decide if he’s going to run’ Biden under renewed pressure to step aside as top Democrats make agonized appeals
(about 8 hours later)
Michael Bennet said Trump may win ‘by a landslide’ while actor George Clooney urged the president to step aside Senator Michael Bennet said Trump may win ‘by a landslide’ while two more senators echoed his concerns
A Democratic senator has predicted Donald Trump will defeat Joe Biden in a “landslide” while the House Democratic leader, Nancy Pelosi, said it was up to Biden “to decide if he’s going to run”, in remarks that will intensify the pressure on the president to reconsider his determination to stay in the race. Joe Biden came under renewed moral pressure on Wednesday to abandon his presidential candidacy amid agonised appeals by a succession of senior Democrats for him to consider the broader picture.
In an impassioned interview with CNN, Michael Bennet of Colorado said he believed Biden could no longer win November’s election and said his campaign needed to assess the decision of whether he steps aside in “moral” terms based on the importance of saving the country from the “American tragedy” of a second Trump presidency. Those calls came as the US president dug in his heels to make it hard to supplant him as the nominee.
“This race is on a trajectory that is very worrisome if you care about the future of this country,” Bennet told CNN’s Kaitlan Collins. “Donald Trump is on track, I think, to win this election and maybe win it by a landslide, and take with him the Senate and the House. It’s not a question about politics, it’s a moral question about the future of our country.” With the backlash over his 27 June TV debate fiasco refusing to abate, the former House of Representatives’ speaker, Nancy Pelosi, became the most senior party yet to subtly float the possibility of Biden stepping down while stopping short of explicitly telling him to do so.
Pelosi, who was speaker of the House until the Republicans regained control of it in the 2022 midterm elections, told MSNBC’s Morning Joe that “it’s up to the president to decide if he is going to run” and said of House Democrats: “We’re all encouraging him to make that decision. Because time is running short.” Republicans in Congress, meanwhile, gleefully sought to further tighten the screw by summoning three White House aides to testify about Biden’s mental fitness.
The Hollywood actor and Democratic fundraiser George Clooney on Wednesday added his voice to the growing number of calls for Biden to drop out. In an opinion article for the New York Times, he expressed concern about the president’s showing at a recent fundraiser in Los Angeles, where he “wasn’t even the Joe Biden of 2020. He was the same man we all witnessed at the debate.” Clooney called Biden a friend but said “the one battle he cannot win is the fight against time”. The summons came in the form of a subpoena from James Comer, the GOP chair of the House oversight committee, who demanded testimony from Anthony Bernal, the top aide to the first lady Jill Biden, deputy chief of staff Annie Tomasini, and senior adviser Ashley Williams, Axios reported.
Bennet’s and Pelosi’s comments followed a lunch meeting of the Democratic Senate caucus in which Bennet and two other senators, Sherrod Brown of Ohio and Jon Tester of Montana, reportedly said they believed Biden was no longer able to win after the 27 June debate failure, in which he appeared repeatedly confused, lost his train of thought and failed to counter a spate of lies from Trump. Pelosi, 84, who was speaker until the Republicans regained control of the House in the 2022 midterm elections, told MSNBC’s Morning Joe that “it’s up to the president to decide if he is going to run”, adding: “We’re all encouraging him to make that decision. Because time is running short.”
While no senators have explicitly called for Biden to step aside – in contrast to seven House members who have appealed to him to abandon his re-election bid – the debate fallout has plunged the Democrats into paralysis as the campaign approaches a key phase. That remark came as the president seemed intent on running down the clock until next month’s Democratic national convention in Chicago, to make it practically impossible to replace him.
Biden has emphatically refused to yield to pressure to bow out, writing to the party’s congressional contingent en masse to emphasise that he is there to stay and throwing the gauntlet down to doubters to challenge him at next month’s convention in Chicago. Pelosi later qualified her comments, claiming they had been subject to “misrepresentations”, while adding “the president is great”.
He has secured crucial support from the Congressional Black caucus, although on Wednesday one of its members, Marc Veasey of Texas, became the first to break ranks by telling CNN that Democrats running in tight races should “distance themselves” from Biden in an effort to “do whatever it is they need to do” to win. But they prefaced further critical interventions from Senate Democrats, who followed the lead of Senator Michael Bennet of Colorado in voicing doubts over whether Biden could beat Donald Trump in November.
Bennet, while stopping short of an all-out call for Biden to withdraw, said that defiant posture was unfitting to the moment – even while voicing empathy for the position of a president who had served his party and country for more than half a century. In the most outspoken comment of any senator to date, Bennet told CNN’s Kaitlan Collins on Tuesday evening that Trump was likely to win November’s poll in a landslide because of the widespread concerns over Biden’s age and mental acuity.
“I’m sure President Biden has a different view of his prospects in this election than I do, but we should be having a discussion,” he said. “The White House in the time since that disastrous debate has done nothing to really demonstrate that they have a plan to win. “This race is on a trajectory that is very worrisome if you care about the future of this country,” he said in an impassioned interview. “Donald Trump is on track, I think, to win this election and maybe win it by a landslide, and take with him the Senate and the House. It’s not a question about politics, it’s a moral question about the future of our country.”
He added: “I have not seen anything remotely approaching the kind of plan we need to see out of the White House that can demonstrate that he can actually beat Donald Trump, which is not going to be about the accomplishments that we all had, you know, three and four years ago. This is something for the president to consider.”
Bennet’s comments stopped short of a full-blown appeal for Biden’s withdrawal, in contrast to Democrats in the House – where seven members have explicitly made such calls in the wake of the debate, where the president repeatedly appeared confused, mangled his words and allowed Trump to lie voluptuously without effective contradiction.
Two more senators, Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut and Peter Welch of Vermont, echoed Bennet’s concerns on Wednesday.
“I am deeply concerned about Joe Biden winning this November,” Blumenthal told reporters, adding that the party “had to reach a conclusion as soon as possible” and that Biden still retained his support.
Late in the evening, Welch called on Biden to withdraw from the election, becoming the first Senate Democrat to do so. Welch said he is worried about the race because “the stakes could not be higher.”
“I understand why President Biden wants to run,” Welch wrote in a Washington Post op-ed. “He saved us from Donald Trump once and wants to do it again. But he needs to reassess whether he is the best candidate to do so. In my view, he is not.
“For the good of the country, I’m calling on President Biden to withdraw from the race.”
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“I have not seen anything remotely approaching the kind of plan we need to see out of the White House that can demonstrate that he can actually beat Donald Trump, which is not going to be about the accomplishments that we all had, you know, three and four years ago. This is something for the president to consider.” A similarly circumspect call to reconsider came from Katie Hobbs, the Democratic governor of Arizona, a battleground state that was one of six moved by the Cook Political Report – a non-partisan election forecaster – in Trump’s direction following the president’s post-debate poll slide.
Bennet’s comments came after a meeting of House Democrats yesterday that failed to produce an expected groundswell of calls for Biden to stand aside but instead saw some previously sceptical members back down in the face of his resolve to continue. Rumbles of discontent among House members continue, however. “I want the president to look at the evidence and make a hard decision,” Hobbs told reporters, adding that Biden had “a lot to do to assure Americans and Arizonans”.
The president himself held a virtual meeting from the White House on Tuesday evening with about 200 Democratic mayors in which he restated his determination to remain and reportedly won their support. Further pressure came from the Hollywood actor George Clooney, one of the Democrats’ biggest fundraisers, who – unrestrained by party discipline – bluntly told Biden to drop out. In an opinion article for the New York Times, he expressed concern about the showing of the president – who he called “a friend” – at a recent fundraiser in Los Angeles, where he “wasn’t even the Joe Biden of 2020. He was the same man we all witnessed at the debate.”
The 40-minute meeting consisted of Biden talking for the first 20 minutes and taking just three questions – chosen by a moderator, Kate Gallego, the mayor of Phoenix – the New York Times reported. Wednesday evening, Representative Earl Blumenauer, the longest-serving Democrat in Oregon’s House delegation, put it bluntly: “President Biden should not be the Democratic presidential nominee.”
Participants could not see who else was on the call or add comments to a chat screen but they were able to show their feelings by adding emojis, with many contributing smiley faces in response to Biden’s words. “The question before the country is whether the president should continue his candidacy for re-election. This is not just about extending his presidency but protecting democracy,” he said in an emailed statement.“It is a painful and difficult conclusion but there is no question in my mind that we will all be better served if the president steps aside as the Democratic nominee and manages a transition under his terms.”
The president reportedly called the debate “a lousy night”. He promised to prioritise housebuilding in his second term and warned the mayors about the consequences of another Trump presidency, focusing on the ex-president’s pledge to be a dictator “only on day one” and stressing the Project 2025 rightwing blueprint for government, which Trump has recently, though unconvincingly, disavowed. There were even signs of slippage within the staunchly loyal Congressional Black caucus, which had pledged its support on Monday night. On Wednesday one of its members, Marc Veasey of Texas, became the first to break ranks by telling CNN that Democrats running in tight races should “distance themselves” from Biden in an effort to “do whatever it is they need to do” to win.
The public agonising illustrated how Biden’s debate failure has plunged the Democrats into paralysis as the campaign approaches a key phase.
Yet there seemed little imminent sign of Biden – who has already written to the party’s congressional group en masse telling doubters to challenge him at the convention – yielding to pressure to bow out.
He retains the support – at least in public – of key party figures such the Democratic minority leader in the House Hakeem Jeffriesand Gavin Newsom, the California governor who has been touted as a potential replacement candidate but who has acted as a loyal surrogate.
Far from retreating, plans were announced for a second prime time television interview – this time with NBC’s Lester Holt next Monday in the symbolic setting of the LBJ library in Austin, Texas – to follow last Friday’s with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos.
The latest interview, coming on the heels of Biden’s hosting of Nato’s 75th anniversary summit in Washington this week – where he has been meeting a succession of world leaders – appeared designed to reinforce the message that he intends to stay the course.
On Wednesday, the president visited the Washington headquarters of the main US trade union body, the AFL-CIO, an important Democrat constituency.
The trade union visit followed a virtual meeting from the White House on Tuesday evening with about 200 Democratic mayors in which he restated his determination to remain and reportedly won their support.