White House Aides Concede That Biden Must Quickly 'Demonstrate Mental Fitness,' Or Plan Efforts To Force His Removal

President Joe Biden’s senior aides said on Wednesday that they have accepted the dire warnings received this week from prominent members of the Democrat Party: either promptly prove Biden is qualified for office or face a major push to remove him from office.

According to two people familiar with the conversations who spoke with the Washington Post on Wednesday, Biden began discreetly reaching out to allies in recent days, acknowledging that he is going through a difficult time and that he needs to show voters that he is qualified for the position due to growing concern from Capitol Hill, prominent donors, and senior party strategists, including some of his own advisers.

His comparatively passive response to quell the alarm caused by his dismal debate performance over the last six days has unsettled his detractors. He began phoning influential congressional leaders on Tuesday afternoon, set up a sit-down interview with ABC News, and “announced a series of weekend campaign travel that will be closely scrutinized,” Washington Post reported.

Senior Democrat strategists, who requested anonymity in regards to the Washington post piece so that they could reveal internal conversations, warned that even a perfect performance over the next week could very well not be enough to save him.

Since the rally on Friday in North Carolina, Biden, 81, has only made three public appearances. During those appearances, he spoke for a total of 22 minutes while utilizing teleprompters in his speeches on severe weather, the recent Supreme Court immunity ruling, and Stonewall National Monument in New York.

As alarm began to spread within the party, a senior campaign adviser described the situation as “a deafening silence” from the top, echoing the worries of other advisers who described the president’s reluctance to show his suitability for government in public. Longtime Biden allies have also expressed their ongoing dissatisfaction with the political response as well as their growing belief that something needs to happen quickly in order to change public opinion.

“I think the onus is really on Biden right now to be very candid with all of us privately, not publicly, not that we’re going to tell reporters, but to be very candid with us privately about what happened. What is the larger issue? Can we get through this?” said Rep. Sean Casten (D-Ill.). “We do need more than emails of polling briefs from White House legislative affairs directors right now to assuage those concerns.”

Ahead of a scheduled meeting with Democrat governors, Biden, however, spent a large portion of Wednesday trying to allay public concerns by speaking with his campaign staff and giving interviews with several radio stations.

“The past few days have been tough. I’m sure you’re getting a lot of calls, and I’m sure many of you have questions as well,” Biden told campaign staff in a conference call, according to an aide who relayed this information to the Washington Post. “Let me say this as clearly as I possibly can and as simply and straightforward as I can: I am running. I’m the nominee of the Democratic Party. No one’s pushing me out. I’m not leaving. I’m in this race to the end, and we’re going to win because when Democrats unite, we always win.”

Soon after, Vice President Kamala Harris joined the same call and asserted: “We will not back down. We will follow our president’s lead. We will fight, and we will win.”

Additionally, a June debate between Biden and Trump was demanded by Biden’s campaign staff in order to address voter apathy and age-related concerns. Instead, as indicated by public surveys, his poor performance alarmed the party and raised doubts about his competency among the general public.

Even though only Republicans had previously expressed these worries regarding Biden’s faulty memory and cognitive skills, it seems as though Democrats are now in the same boat, and the wave of denial has passed.

Drafts of a potential public letter for House Democrats to consider calling on Biden to resign were still being discussed among themselves on Wednesday. Congressmen Jared Golden (D-Maine.) and Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D-Wash.) publicly declared on Tuesday that Biden is no longer able to win, while Representative Lloyd Doggett (D-Texas.) stated that he ought to be replaced as the party’s nominee for president. On Wednesday, Representative Raúl Grijalva (D-Ariz.) also demanded that Biden resign.

Members of the House purportedly presented a new YouGov poll showing Biden trailing Trump on a text chain on Wednesday morning.

As one senator on the text chain put it: “There’s all this potential to defeat Trump and it also says how much it’s being held back by Biden.”

However, other uneasy lawmakers did not take the poll results seriously.

“The president and his team have been through the highest of highs and the lowest of lows. And you know what? That will continue,” stated Jeff Zients, the White House’s chief of staff, on a call. “The only way to get through it is as a team.”

According to another source involved with the discussions, Biden has lost major support of the wealthy donor sector. It is not totally apparent yet if it will materially affect funding if Biden continues in the campaign. Donor advisers claim that significant funds to anticipated outside organizations working for his campaign have been withheld in numerous instances since the first debate, according to the Washington Post.

Additionally, in the past few days, liberal donor networks such as the Democracy Alliance, American Bridge, and the Strategic Victory Fund have all hosted calls, during which contributors have voiced grievances about proceeding. One independent group’s officials have started looking at polls to assess how well their planned ads will perform in the event that Biden does not end up being the Democrat nominee.

In one instance, an unidentified corporate executive who assisted in organizing a fundraiser for the Chicago convention last year claimed that even big donors were denied the opportunity to pose questions to Biden in a private gathering by the president’s team. The individual emphasized that this refusal was “shocking.”

“I told them my donors don’t care about a photo. They want to talk to him. The Biden people just wouldn’t let them,” he said. “It was clear they were managing him in a way I’ve never experienced before. Donors expect to get to talk to the president if you’re writing a big check and having an event with him.”

In the meantime, Biden’s family has now acknowledged the “unsatisfactory” debate and the precarious situation, but they have stated that he will continue to be the party’s nominee barring major polling data declines or the worries and doubt of high-profile Democrat officials.

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