Top Dems planning meeting about Biden's future despite president's vows to continue campaign
Top Democratic congressional leaders are planning to hold a meeting to discuss President Biden's fledgling re-election campaign, even as Biden himself has struck a defiant tone amid calls to drop out of the race.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., is leading a virtual meeting with top Democrats on Sunday, with leaders expected to discuss the path forward for Biden's campaign, according to an NBC News report that has been confirmed by Fox News.
The meeting will feature Jeffries and top committee Democrats, a person familiar with the arrangement told Fox News, but will not be a meeting of the full Democratic caucus.
The meeting comes after Biden's 22-minute interview with ABC News on Friday, which the Biden campaign hoped would ease fears that the president doesn't have what it takes to continue the campaign and defeat former President Donald Trump in December. Instead, the interview set off a new round of fears among Democrats who were already concerned by Biden's disastrous debate performance last week.
"Look, Biden looked better and certainly more coherent than he looked during the debate, but there's nothing in this interview that is calming the nerves of jittery Democrats who fear that Joe Biden is on a trajectory to lose this race, to lose to Donald Trump," ABC News chief Washington correspondent Jonathan Karl said after the interview.
Biden, however, struck a defiant tone, saying at one point that he would not drop out unless "the Lord Almighty were to come down and say, ‘Joe, get outta the race.'"
But Democrats, many of whom have expressed fears a lackluster performance by Biden at the top of the Democratic ticket and cost the party Congressional seats, are seemingly not persuaded.
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The meeting of House committee leaders, which is slated for 2 p.m. Sunday, is not part of any regularly scheduled meeting for top Democrats, NBC reported. Meanwhile, Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., is organizing a meeting among Democratic senators next week to discuss Biden's electability and the potential fallout for down-ballot races.
While some Democrats have kept concerns about the president's electability private, a growing number have publicly called on Biden to step aside.
Meanwhile, Biden defenders such as Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., have urged others not to panic. Fetterman told NBC News that he "can’t think of a single situation where panicking or freaking out has made a situation better."
"He’s the one person who has beaten Trump before," Fetterman said of Biden.
The Biden campaign did not immediately respond to a Fox News Digital request for comment.