White House Denies Report That Biden Is Considering Dropping Out

It’s been nearly a week since Joe Biden’s disastrous debate performance against Donald Trump. As public pressure mounts for the president to reconsider his run for office, the White House and Biden campaign are struggling to reassure the public that he remains fit for the demands of elected office. Biden may need some reassuring himself.

The New York Times reported on Wednesday that the president is weighing whether to continue in the race, and that he has confided in a close ally that he feels his candidacy now rests on his ability to convince voters that Thursday’s disastrous debate was just a fluke. “He knows if he has two more events like that, we’re in a different place,” the ally told the Times under a blanket of anonymity.

The White House immediately denied the Times’ story, with spokesperson Andrew Bates writing on X that it is “absolutely false.”

Despite the White House’s denial, CNN reported something similar later on Wednesday. “He sees the moment. He’s clear-eyed,” an ally told the network.

The reports came after the Biden campaign sent out an all-staff memo touting positive polling for the president. According to a copy of the document obtained by Politico, Campaign Chair Jen O’Malley Dillon and Campaign Manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez wrote that “polls are a snapshot in time and we should all expect them to continue to fluctuate — it will take a few weeks, not a few days, to get a full picture of the race.”

The memo was just one instance in a wider effort to make direct contact with lawmakers, donors, and staff in the hopes of convincing them that everything is absolutely fine.

As previously reported by Rolling Stone, a similar memo sent to journalists and supporters on Saturday claimed that polling showed that “this election was incredibly close before Thursday, and by every metric we’ve seen since, it remains just as close.”

Biden is expected to meet with Democratic governors both virtually and in person on Wednesday. According to one source who spoke to CBS News, state heads want to hear from him directly before going and sticking out their necks for him again.”

Also on Wednesday, Biden Chief of Staff Jeff Zients held an all-hands call with White House staffers, in part to address internal concerns about both the president’s debate performance and the growing calls for an upheaval in the campaign ticket. “The vibes are really bad. People feel demoralized,” one administration official told Politico last week.

Both Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris reportedly joined the call to reassure staffers that they will continue to fight for reelection. “Let me say this as clearly as I possibly can as simply and straightforward as I can: I am running … no one’s pushing me out,” the president said, per Politico. “I’m not leaving. I’m in this race to the end and we’re going to win.”

The campaign is projecting optimism, but surveys and polls it has referenced show that most voters see the president as too old to serve another term, and would prefer a different candidate. Thursday’s debate was not an outlier. According to a Tuesday report from the Times, Biden’s prep team ahead of the debate described a man whose cognitive issues are becoming more pronounced, more frequent, and more concerning.

The Biden campaign’s strategy so far has seemingly been to insist that Thursday’s debate was fluke for an aging, but otherwise healthy, president. “Everyone just needs to breathe through the nose for a minute,” Democratic National Committee finance chair Chris Korge told donors during a call on Monday.

But deep breaths, memos, and meetings won’t make the very real concerns about Biden’s age and fitness disappear, especially for voters already disillusioned with their two choices on November’s ballot.

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