Barack Obama says Joe Biden needs to reconsider his election bid
Joe Biden’s future teeters on a knife edge after reports that the most influential figure in the Democratic party now believes the President’s path to victory has diminished and the 81-year-old should ‘seriously consider’ his candidacy.
Joe Biden’s chances of staying in the presidential race have taken another major blow with reports that Barack Obama has told allies that Mr Biden “needs to seriously consider the viability of his candidacy’’.
The Washington Post reports that Mr Obama, the most influential figure in the Democratic party, now believes the path to victory for his former Vice President has greatly diminished.
Mr Obama is refusing to comment publicly and is said to be concerned with protecting Mr Biden and his legacy.
But news that Mr Obama is also questioning Mr Biden’s candidacy could be the final blow for the president after reports former House speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer and House minority leader Hakaam Jeffries had told the president they didn’t believe he could win and that he could lose both houses of Congress.
Mr Biden, who is recovering from Covid at his home in Rehoboth Delaware, has not commented but has publicly insisted that he intends to seek a second term in the White House.
According to an average of bookies’ odds collated by REalClear Politics, the president’s chance of being re-elected plunged to under 8 per cent overnight from 18 per cent a day earlier amid a deluge of dire polls that showed the Democrats easily losing in November.
Mr Obama initially defended Mr Biden after his disastrous debate performance last month, saying “Bad debate nights happen’’.
“Trust me, I know. But this election is still a choice between someone who has fought for ordinary folks his entire life and someone who only cares about himself,” he said at the time.
Mr Obama, who picked Mr Biden as his vice president, has reportedly only spoken to Mr Biden once since that debate but has been actively talking with others in the party about the issue.
Mr Biden is expected to isolate for the rest of the week, with his doctor, Kevin O’Connor, saying he was “still experiencing mild upper respiratory symptoms (and that) “he does not have a fever and his vital signs remain normal.”
But Mr Biden’s Covid diagnosis takes him out of the public eye just when he wants to portray his vitality to Americans at the same time Donald Trump is bathing in idolatry attention at the Republican National Committee in Milwaukee.
Biden’s political and medical woes compounded as anticipation reached fever pitch for Donald Trump’s address to the Republican National Convention, which will come less than a week after the former president survived an assassination attempt at a rally in Pennsylvania last week.
Mr Trump’s remarks, scheduled to begin at 9pm local time on Thursday (Friday noon AEST) and last for potentially 90 minutes according to a preliminary program, will cap four days of speeches and presentations by Mr Trump’s most loyal supporters, family members, and senior Republicans.
Mr Trump is expected to seek to unify the Republican party under his leadership and underscore the growing contrast between his party and Mr Biden’s fractured Democrats, who are bracing for a potentially brutal internal fight over who might succeed the ageing president as their candidate.
The speaker line up for the final day of the four-day Republican political jamboree, which formally confirmed the former president as the party’s presidential nominee, will include journalist Tucker Carlson, former wrestler Hulk Hogan, and former Republican secretary of State Mike Pompeo.
It will also feature a musical interlude by musician Kid Rock, a long term Trump supporter.
Separately, Republicans ramped up attacks on the head of the US Secret Service, Kimberly Cheatle, who reportedly met Mr Trump at the convention and whom Republicans blame for the security breach that almost ended his life.
“I’m prepared this morning to call on President Biden to — to fire — Director Cheatle,” Republican Speaker Mike Johnson told Fox Business ahead of Mr Trump’s address.
Ms Cheatle’s explanation for why the roof the shooter used to attempt to assassinate Mr Trump wasn’t secured – because it had a slope – has infuriated Republicans.
“We lost an American hero on Saturday and were millimeters away from losing President Trump. It is inexcusable,” Mr Johnson said.
Donald Trump’s vice-presidential candidate JD Vance gave his first major speech yesterday at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, less than a week after Mr Trump was almost assassinated.
It came as four of the most powerful congressional Democrats – Ms Pelosi, Senator Schumer, House minority leader Jeffries and congressman Adam Schiff – effectively asked Mr Biden to exit the race by telling him he would lose the election and both houses of congress. Such an outcome, they warned, would allow a re-elected Mr Trump to pass his agenda through the legislature.
They are the most senior of the now 25 members of congress who have pressed the President not to run again in the wake of his disastrous debate performance last month. These numbers threaten to grow rapidly in the days ahead, making it all but impossible for Mr Biden to continue to oppose calls for him to abandon his bid for a second term in the White House.
CNN reported that Ms Pelosi privately told Mr Biden recently that polling showed he could not defeat Mr Trump and could destroy the Democrats’ hopes of winning the House in the November election. America’s ABC News reported that Senator Schumer, the most senior Democrat in congress, “forcefully” told Mr Biden in a one-on-one meeting at the Biden home in Delaware at the weekend that he should end his re-election bid. The Washington Post said Senator Schumer and Mr Jeffries warned Mr Biden the Democrats could lose both houses.
When questioned about the reports, Senator Schumer’s office said: “Leader Schumer conveyed the views of his caucus.”
Mr Jeffries, in a meeting last Thursday, also reportedly called on Mr Biden not to run.
Mr Schiff, who led the first House effort to impeach Mr Trump, said openly Mr Biden should quit the race.
“Our nation is at a crossroads,” Mr Schiff said. “A second Trump presidency will undermine the very foundation of our democracy, and I have serious concerns about whether the President can defeat Donald Trump in November.”
If Democrats persuade Mr Biden not to run, the party will have to decide whether to hold a rapid-fire open contest between all possible contenders or whether to hand the nomination to Vice-President Kamala Harris.
News of Mr Biden’s collapsing support came as his positive Covid test forced him to cancel a speech in Las Vegas. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Mr Biden was vaccinated and had mild symptoms. The President leaned out of his limousine ahead of a flight to Delaware and gave a thumbs-up. “I feel good,” he said.
When questioned about his age in an interview before the Covid test, Mr Biden said he would re-evaluate whether to stay in the race if a doctor told him directly that he had a medical condition that made it necessary – “if I had some medical condition that emerged, if somebody, if doctors came to me and said, ‘you got this problem and that problem’”.
The President has said no doctors have told him this, with White House physician Kevin O’Connor writing in February that Mr Biden is “a healthy, active, robust, 81-year-old male who remains fit to successfully execute the duties of the presidency”.
The President’s answer differs from his previous statement that he would only leave the race if “the Lord Almighty” told him to do so. He has also subsequently said he would leave the race if his aides came to him with proof that he could not win.
The pressure on Mr Biden to leave the race is likely to increase after this week’s Republican convention in Milwaukee when the focus of politics swings back to the civil war within the Democrats about Biden’s future.
Senator Schumer and Mr Jefferies have pressured the Democratic National Committee to delay a virtual roll call confirming Mr Biden as the party nominee weeks before the convention. Under the current plan, online voting would begin as early as August 1 and wrap up on August 7 – nearly two weeks before the start of the convention in Chicago.
Mr Schiff called Mr Biden “one of the most consequential presidents in our nation’s history” and said “while the choice to withdraw from the campaign is President Biden’s alone, I believe it is time for him to pass the torch”.
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