Momentous Press Conference Looms Today As Cracks Form In Biden's Senate Wall, Donations Dry Up, Delegates Rebel

Despite President Biden and his team attempting a major, multi-faceted counter-offensive aimed at silencing demands for him to call off his re-election bid, the push to bounce Biden off the ticket has only grown stronger -- with major new developments in the Senate and elsewhere fostering a growing sense that the 81-year-old's campaign is in its final days. 

Today could bring the coup de grâce, when Biden hosts a rare, solo press conference at 5:30 pm. That's outside the ideal 10am-to-4pm window in which administration sources say he's best able to function -- and it will be held on the South Grounds of the White House, with a forecast temperature of 91 degrees. As if that weren't enough to stack the deck against him, the presser will come after Biden has spent a full day in NATO summit meetings, including a session with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. 

On top of all that, Biden will face a press corps that's been re-programmed to accelerate the ongoing establishment coup that's seen as the last means of beating Trump in November. As we noted in our press-conference preview:

"With Biden on a precipice, Thursday's press conference could be a contest among reporters striving to cement their place in history by being the one to give Biden the decisive shove over the cliff." 

using cheat sheets telling which reporters to call on and what question they'll ask -- that may not fly today (AFP via Getty Images and New York Post)

Biden's 2024 campaign slid closer to that edge on Wednesday, as Vermont's Peter Welch became the first Democratic senator to publicly call for Biden to exit the race, pointedly saying "We cannot unsee President Biden’s disastrous debate performance. We cannot ignore or dismiss the valid questions raised since that night...I deliver this assessment with sadness."

His call came on the same day that the number of House reps issuing similar pleas to Biden grew to nine, with Oregon's Earl Blumenauer saying Biden "should not be the nominee." Also, New York Lt. Gov. Antonio Delgado joined the chorus, in a move that reportedly made Gov. Kathy Hochul "furious." 

Of potentially greater Senate significance than Welch's announcement, Democratic Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has reportedly been entertaining avenues by which Biden could be replaced. "Schumer is privately signaling to donors that he's open to a Democratic presidential ticket that isn't led by President Biden," Axios reported. According to three unnamed sources, he has been listening to "donors' ideas and suggestions about the best way forward." Schumer responded to the report by merely reiterating that he "support[s]" Biden." 

In an attempt to shore up Biden's weakening Senate wall, three of Biden's top political advisors will meet with Democratic senators at lunch today to give an audience to their concerns. Reflecting the increasingly sour mood among upper-chamber Democrats, Punchbowl News reporter Andrew Desiderio says one of those senators spontaneously told him the meeting will be “a waste of everyone’s time if Biden can’t even come make the case himself.”

In addition to the Senate, there's new action on another anti-Biden front, as dozens of Democratic Party delegates are organizing a letter to the DNC seeking nominating-convention rule changes that would make their votes secret and allow delegates to vote their conscience -- rather than being bound to vote for the winners of their state primaries and caucuses.

In a defensive move, members of Biden's campaign team have been calling individual delegates to assess their loyalty to the president, Politico reports. The aides are asking question like, "Do you understand what being a pledged delegate means?" and "Do you have any potential disagreements with the president?"

Wednesday also brought a major-headline broadside from Hollywood, as actor and Biden rainmaker George Clooney published a New York Times op-ed declaring that the Biden he saw at last month's big Los Angeles fundraiser is a shell of his former self:

Further fueling the Democrats' sense of all-out crisis, donors large and small are making good on their promises to withhold donations so long as Biden is atop the ticket. Donations to the Biden-Harris campaign have gone into an absolute free-fall, and NBC News served up a variety of doom-and-gloom quotes from various sources "close to" the campaign's fundraising efforts: 

• “It’s already disastrous."
• "The money has absolutely shut off."
• “Donors are negative. They had a call with the president. The call seemed so contrived to people...I don’t think they buy it." 

There's been a growing comedic edge to Democrats' public remarks this week. On Monday, Biden sent Congressional Democrats a two-page letter unequivocally declaring that, after having "extensive conversations...over 10 days" with Democratic party officials, legislators and voters, he is determined to stay in the race to Nov. 5. Pretending they didn't read that -- or hear Biden's declaration that it would take a directive from "the Lord Almighty" for him to opt out, prominent Democrats continue talking about Biden's decision in the future tense. Case in point: Nancy Pelosi's Wednesday-morning appearance on MSNBC:  

The phenomenon has made for laughs across social media...

While everyone else is laughing, the pressure from the Biden crisis is clearly getting to Nancy:

...while even the long-serving Biden apologists at leftist outlets at CNN are increasingly contemptuous of the Baghdad Bob lines emanating from the White House: 

It can't be long now...