The calls are growing louder for President Joe Biden to step aside after his debate performance set off alarm bells throughout the Democratic Party.
The 81-year-old president appeared frail and feeble during last week's debate, highlighting voter concerns about his advanced age, and Axios co-founder Jim Vande Hei told MSNBC's "Morning Joe" that donors and Democratic lawmakers are frustrated with Biden's campaign and inner circle for allowing the president to flop in such a disastrous manner — and then trying to explain it away.
"Donors are furious," Vande Hei said. "Voters are telling them what [Rep.] Lloyd Doggett's voters are telling him, which is we want him to step aside. That's why yesterday we talked to several people who were on multiple calls with a lot of members, and when there was a show of hands or, hey, should he stay in – almost nobody said that he should stay in.
"They want [House minority leader] Hakeem Jeffries, they want [Senate majority leader] Chuck Schumer, the two Democratic leaders, to go in and talk to him and have a very serious conversation about getting out of the race before the convention so they can have a messy but orderly transition to somebody else."
Democratic governors convened for a private call Monday to discuss the situation, and many expressed surprise that none of them had heard from the president himself and asked for a White House meeting with him or, at least, Vice President Kamala Harris.
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"They believe, and I think they're right, that the Biden family and the Biden staff are trying to keep anyone who might make that case to Biden away from Biden," Vande Hei said.
"He started to make calls [Tuesday], you're correct, but it took a while. People who love the president, have been with him at the beginning, who want to have this gut check with him whether or not he could not only lose the presidency but cost them the House and the Senate. You toss in that Supreme Court ruling, and you have Democrats saying this could be an existential threat to our party's majority in their own personal views."
Vande Hei's remarks followed up on a report posted to Axios on Wednesday morning that showed Democratic lawmakers are even more exasperated about the president's denial and deflection than his decrepit performance across from Donald Trump on the debate stage.
"I don't know who's making decisions," said one House Democrat. "Why the hell isn't Biden on the phone with congressional leadership? ... Everybody now thinks he could cost us the majority."
A Biden campaign spokesperson told Axios the president had "spoken personally with multiple elected officials on the Hill and across the battlegrounds since the debate," but lawmakers have been privately sharing stories of his age-related decline and vented that his family and closest advisers seem to be hiding his capacity.
"Everyone is freaking the f--k out," said one White House official.
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