It’s not Joever til it’s Joever, but after nearly three weeks of mounting pleas from within his own party, President Joe Biden might actually be considering the calls to drop out of the presidential race.
CNN’s Jeff Zeleny reported Wednesday that a senior Democratic adviser said Biden had grown “more receptive to these calls of concern.” Zeleny, quoting the source, said that Biden is “being receptive, not as defiant as he is publicly,” and said that the private conversations about his candidacy were continuing on Capitol Hill.
While Biden has given no indication that he plans to leave the race, he has reportedly begun asking questions about whether his running mate, Vice President Kamala Harris, stands a chance of winning the White House in November.
One person close to the president told The New York Times Wednesday that it would be wrong to consider Biden more completely receptive to the idea of withdrawing, but that he “is willing to listen.”
Biden’s change in tune comes after a particularly tough day for the embattled president.
Earlier Wednesday, news broke that the two highest-ranking democrats in Congress, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, had made direct appeals for Biden to drop out of the race for the good of the party.
Schumer met with Biden Saturday to talk about “recent polling, the Democratic Party, and where it’s headed,” one anonymous source close to both congressional lawmakers told Politico. The discussion was “predicated on the recent troubles facing the president.”
A few days earlier, Jeffries had a similar conversation with Biden, telling the president that his presence at the top of the ticket imperiled the Democrats running down the ballot, according to another source who was also granted anonymity.
Both men were also reportedly part of a quiet push to delay the Democratic National Committee’s attempts to fast-track Biden’s nomination, through a virtual roll call at the beginning of next month.
In another damaging leak, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi also reportedly showed Biden recent polling that indicated he will lose to Trump in November, four sources who were behind the call told CNN. Biden reportedly responded defensively, and Pelosi requested that one of Biden’s advisers join the call to discuss the data.
As if that wasn’t enough, Biden also tested positive for Covid-19, an announcement which comes just after the president said he would drop out of the race if he was “diagnosed with a medical condition.” While it’s pretty obvious that this isn’t the kind of diagnosis he was talking about, it’s possible that his latest illness will significantly stall his ability to campaign, and convince the president he’d rather not work through the pain.
