Some Democrats still uneasy as Biden tries to shore up support

President Biden met with key Democrats on Saturday afternoon to urge them to back his reelection efforts, but some lawmakers came away from the meetings frustrated that the president did not directly answer some of their questions, according to several lawmakers on the calls.

Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.), a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus who was on the group’s virtual call with Biden, said he asked the president if he’d be willing to convene with several top Democrats, like former presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (N.Y.), Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (N.Y.) and former Rep. Nancy Pelosi (Calif.). If those leaders suggested that Biden should “pass the torch” in “the interest of saving democracy,” Huffman asked, would the president do it?

“He didn’t really give much of an answer,” Huffman said. “He frankly left me a little bit unsure of whether he continues to have an open mind about a course correction and whether we run a winning trajectory, or whether he has closed off any further consideration of it.”

Huffman said he was also able to ask the president if his own “feistiness and tenacity along with his close circle of advisers and family were maybe preventing him from objectively assessing the damage from the debate.”

“He obviously doesn’t think so,” Huffman said of the president’s response.

Democrats are facing an increasingly perilous situation as lawmakers continue to fret publicly and privately that Biden cannot defeat presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump, who they say would be catastrophic and a threat to democracy. In the face of that opposition, Biden delivered a fiery speech at a campaign rally in Detroit on Friday evening, doubling down on his commitment to continuing his campaign.

Biden also met virtually on Saturday with members of the New Democrat Coalition, according to the Biden-Harris campaign. The group represents almost 100 House Democrats who range from the liberal and moderate wings of the caucus and are often most likely to work across the aisle in negotiations. The meeting is significant since most of the 21 House Democrats who have come out publicly against Biden are part of the group. The president joined both meetings from his beach house in Rehoboth Beach, Del., where he is spending the weekend before he departs for a trip to Texas and Nevada on Monday.

During the 45-minute call with New Democrats, Biden opened with brief, seemingly scripted remarks acknowledging peoples’ concerns, according to two people familiar with the call. Reps. Marc Veasey (D-Tex.), Jason Crow (D-Colo.) and Chrissy Houlahan (D-Pa.) asked questions, all three challenging him to address issues about worsening polls showing Democratic candidates being dragged down by the president. They also expressed concerns about his abilities, the two people familiar said.

Crow asked Biden to address voters’ worries about reports that he told a group of Democratic governors that he needed to get more sleep and stop scheduling events past 8 p.m., which he argued could be a national security threat, according to the two people. Biden responded with disbelief that a lawmaker would challenge him on his national security credentials given his many years of experience and work on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, one of the people said. These people spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the private calls.

Biden also told members, many of whom are in tough races, that he understood if they needed to break with him to win their elections. Several members felt the president did not directly answer their questions.

Rep. Ann Kuster (D-N.H.), the chair of the New Democrat Coalition, said in a statement members had “a candid, respectful and productive conversation with the President about how to win over disaffected voters and boost turn out in swing districts.”

“Moving forward we expect President Biden to do everything in his power to demonstrate to the American people that Democrats will keep the White House and flip the House in November,” Kuster said.

Schumer also met in person with Biden on Saturday in Rehoboth Beach. “I sat with President Biden this afternoon in Delaware; we had a good meeting,” he said in a statement.

The Congressional Progressive Caucus remains split on supporting Biden, similar to the other factions. But Biden has a key group of support within the CPC: members of the progressive “Squad,” including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (N.Y.), who believe Democrats should rally around Biden to not lose sight of what they say is the threat of Trump.

One influential member of the CPC, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), strongly endorsed Biden’s reelection bid in an op-ed published online Saturday in the New York Times. Sanders urged his fellow liberals to “learn a lesson from the progressive and centrist forces in France who, despite profound political differences, came together this week to soundly defeat right-wing extremism.”

Biden met with the Congressional Black Caucus on Monday night and the campaign arm of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus on Friday to try to shore up support from key Democratic constituencies.

The president in recent days has tried to address concerns about his physical and mental fitness head-on.

During a stop to visit campaign organizers in a Detroit suburb on Friday, he told supporters, “I promise I’m okay.” He held a rare solo news conference on Thursday and took questions from reporters for an hour in an effort to prove he could handle unscripted settings. He demonstrated the depth of his foreign policy knowledge but had a few verbal stumbles.

But Biden was perhaps most impassioned during a campaign rally in Michigan on Friday, where he addressed a crowd of more than 2,000 energetic supporters who chanted “don’t you quit” and “we’ve got your back.” He delivered his most forceful defense yet of his candidacy there, where he charged that Trump was getting a “free pass” and unspooled a list of factors he said disqualified Trump from serving as president again.

Biden accused journalists and pundits of fixating on his verbal slip-ups while ignoring Trump’s criminal conviction and the accusations of sexual assault and rape against him.

“Mr. Trump raped her,” Biden, emphasizing the word “raped” as he read from a judge’s ruling in a case in which Trump was found civilly liable of defaming writer E. Jean Carroll after she accused him of assaulting her years ago. “Many people understand the word ‘rape.’”

Democrats have feverishly debated whether Biden should stay in the presidential race — now less than four months away — as time quickly runs out to replace him with another candidate if he were to step aside. Concerns about Biden’s mental acuity and physical stamina were brought to the forefront after his June 27 debate performance, in which he struggled to complete thoughts and finish sentences.

Many Democrats fear that Biden cannot beat Trump but have not publicly come forward, and time is quickly running out to put a new candidate, such as Harris, at the top of the ticket.

Over the past week, Harris has made several public appearances before influential groups of Black women to mobilize behind the Biden-Harris ticket and leading various campaign rallies. But she has been deliberate in not mentioning the rising chorus of complaints against Biden’s efforts to stay in the race.

Biden, for his part, has insisted at every turn he will not step aside. At the Detroit rally on Friday, he reiterated that Democratic primary voters had chosen him and complained that “elites” were trying to undo their will.

“You’ve probably noticed there’s been a lot of speculation lately: ‘What’s Joe Biden going to do? Is he going to stay in the race? He’s going to drop out,’” Biden said. “Here’s my answer: I am running, and we’re going to win.”

Marianna Sotomayor contributed to this report.