President Joe Biden will step aside as the presumptive Democrat presidential nominee as “soon as this weekend,” several top Democrats privately told Axios Thursday.
The Biden-Harris campaign immediately rejected the idea, telling Bloomberg that Biden will remain atop the ticket.
Nearly two-thirds of Democrats want Biden to quit the race, an Associated Press/NORC poll found Wednesday.
“His choice is to be one of history’s heroes, or to be sure of the fact that there’ll never be a Biden presidential library,” one of Biden’s closest friends told Axios. “I pray that he does the right thing. He’s headed that way.”
Axios reported its conversations with top Democrats:
Why it matters: The 81-year-old president, now self-isolating with COVID, remains publicly dug in. But privately he’s resigned to mounting pressure, bad polls, and untenable scrutiny making it impossible to continue his campaign, the Democrats tell us.
Behind the scenes: The private message, distilled to its bluntest form: The top leaders of his party, his friends and key donors believe he can’t win, can’t change public perceptions of his age and acuity, and can’t deliver congressional majorities.
The president is being told that if he stays in, former President Trump could win in a landslide and wipe away Biden’s legacy and Democrats’ hopes in November.
Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), and three leading party bosses, are working to remove Biden from the ticket, according to media reports, but the president cannot be forced from the ticket. He could only be replaced on his own terms.
Biden said Tuesday he would reevaluate his candidacy for president if his doctors told him he had a medical issue. Biden’s comment is the first time he “opened the door to a theoretical medical condition forcing him from the presidential race,” according to Politico. Biden previously said that only the “Lord Almighty” could force him from the race.
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Wendell Husebo is a political reporter with Breitbart News and a former RNC War Room Analyst. He is the author of Politics of Slave Morality. Follow Wendell on “X” @WendellHusebø or on Truth Social @WendellHusebo.
