White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre on Tuesday expressed her desire to “turn the page” on doubts about Joe Biden’s physical and mental ability to run for re-election. His thesis that last Thursday’s disastrous debate on CNN was just “a bad night” due to a cold is not convincing even to his own people and the noise is growing, with increasing pressure for him to reconsider whether he should continue in the presidential race. According to The New York Times, Biden has acknowledged to a close ally, on condition of anonymity, that he is “weighing whether to stay in the race,” according to the New York newspaper’s headline on Wednesday, a report that was followed by a flat denial. “That claim is absolutely false. If The New York Times If he had given us more than seven minutes to comment, we would have told him,” he said. a spokesman.
In fact, the New York newspaper’s headline seems to go further than what is reported in the text. In it, what the ally says is that if Biden continues to make lapses like those in the debate against Donald Trump, with unfinished sentences, hesitations and lack of mental acuity, in a couple more events this week, “he might not be able to save his candidacy.” The anonymous source assures that the president remains determined to remain in the fight for reelection, but admits: “He knows that if he has two more events like that, we will be in a different place,” the anonymous ally tells the New York newspaper.
Biden has looked better in his public statements after the debate than he did face-to-face, but he has not passed the teleprompter test. At a rally in Raleigh, in his brief speech on the ruling granting broad immunity to his Republican rival and in other recent events, he has taken refuge in it. The interview he will give to George Stephanopoulos of the ABC network on Friday, and the press conference he will give next week on the occasion of the NATO summit in Washington will serve to test whether, in addition to reading a text on the screens, he is able to string together a coherent speech without getting lost. In addition, the president has intensified his agenda with campaign events in Madison (Wisconsin) and Philadelphia (Pennsylvania), two decisive states.
If he draws a blank in the interview, or is unable to finish his sentences at the rallies or the press conference, the pressure on him will be irresistible, Biden’s anonymous ally admits, which is quite obvious. These are decisive acts for the future of his campaign. His performance in these interventions will serve to clarify what former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called a legitimate doubt about whether what happened in the debate is “an episode or a condition.”
Karine Jean-Pierre faced pointed questions at Tuesday’s White House press conference, her first since the debate, about whether Biden has Alzheimer’s, dementia or some other neurodegenerative disease. “No. And I hope they’re asking the other guy that question,” she replied. The New York Times, Meanwhile, he said that according to sources close to him, Biden’s lapses seem to be becoming more frequent, more pronounced and more worrying. These episodes are not predictable, but they seem more likely when he is in the middle of a large crowd or tired after a particularly grueling program, he added.
Democrats have plunged into an internal crisis in which there are not many dissenting voices raised in public, but there are many expressing doubts in private. On Wednesday, the president will meet with Democratic governors at the White House behind closed doors to try to clear up the doubts.
Knowing what’s happening outside means understanding what’s going to happen inside, so don’t miss anything.
KEEP READING
Doubts about Biden are gnawing at Democrats. On the one hand, it is obvious to them that he is not in top form. On the other, there is no clear alternative. Biden finds three types of arguments in the polls to resist throwing in the towel: his voting intention has not suffered much after the debate, the majority of Democratic voters want him to stay and the viable alternatives would not fare better against Donald Trump.
At an event with donors to a political action committee, a prominent Democratic election consultant, Dmitri Mehlhorn, stressed that the most obvious alternative, Vice President Kamala Harris, might not prove very effective. “Kamala Harris is more threatening to those undecided voters than a dead or comatose Joe Biden,” he was quoted as saying. a recording to which you have had access Traffic light“So if Joe has to go, it will be Kamala and if it is Kamala, it will be more difficult,” he added.
“Seventy-two percent of people want something different. Why not give it to them?” James Carville, a former Bill Clinton aide, asked in a conference call for dozens of donors to the Democratic organization American Bridge, according to the same media. “They just ask for a different option.”
Michelle Obama’s choice
The bulk of voters believe Biden should drop out of the re-election race, but most Democrats still support him. One in three party voters think he should end his candidacy, but no prominent elected Democrat comes out better than Biden in a hypothetical matchup against former President Trump in the Nov. 5 election, according to a poll of 100 Democrats. Reuters/Ipsos poll closed on Tuesday.
Among the prominent Democratic names presented to respondents, only Michelle Obama, wife of former Democratic President Barack Obama, edged out Biden and led Trump 50% to 39% in a hypothetical matchup. Michelle Obama has repeatedly said she has no intention of running for president. Her husband has publicly endorsed Biden, though he has privately expressed concerns about the campaign.
The vice president, for example, led Trump by one percentage point, 42% to 43% — a difference that was within the poll’s 3.5 percentage point margin of error, making Harris’s result statistically the same as Biden’s. California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a rising Democratic star who many observers predict could run for president in future elections, fared slightly worse, with 39% to Trump’s 42%.
About 70% of Democrats in the poll said they had never heard of Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, who some Democratic donors see as a strong candidate after his victories to lead their heavily Republican state. The fact that Beshear, a relative unknown, trailed Trump by only a narrow margin in the Reuters/Ipsos poll (36% to 40%) illustrates the extent to which Democrats oppose the former president and are willing to vote for any of his candidates.
Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer trailed Trump 36% to 41%, while Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker garnered 34% support to Trump’s 40% in an online poll of 1,070 American adults nationwide.
Follow all the information about the elections in the United States at our weekly newsletter.
#York #Times #Biden #withdrawing #White #House #denies
