by WorldTribune Staff, June 30, 2024 Contract With Our Readers
Joe Biden is huddled with his family at Camp David this weekend where they are discussing the future of his re-election campaign, NBC News reported, citing five people familiar with the matter.
Following publication of the report, the White House dismissed it as “not accurate.” A source told NBC that the gathering was not a formal family meeting.
“Any discussion about the campaign is expected to be informal or an afterthought,” the source said. “No one is sitting down for a formal or determinative discussion.”
One of the 81-year-old Biden’s closest advisers, Anita Dunn, told MSNBC’s “The Weekend” on Saturday that Biden has not discussed dropping out of the race with aides and that internal talks have focused on moving forward.
However after Biden’s disastrous debate performance on Thursday night, The New York Times and Atlanta Journal Constitution called on Biden to drop out of the race, and the online debated focused on how he would be replaced and whether he could even finish out his term.
The Democrat Party’s top leaders have offered public support for Biden, including in tweets posted by Barack Obama and Bill Clinton. Even as they publicly back Biden, senior congressional Democrats, including Reps. Hakeem Jeffries of New York, Jim Clyburn of South Carolina, and Nancy Pelosi of California, have privately expressed concerns about his viability, NBC reported, citing two sources apprised of those discussions.
Democrats had dismissed earlier concerns regarding Biden’s deteriorating physical and mental health.
In February, special counsel Robert Hur’s report on Biden’s handling of classified documents asserted that Biden displayed significant memory problems.
“Democrats worried. Then most of them followed the president’s lead and dismissed it as partisan hackery,” a June 28 Wall Street Journal report said. “Biden’s closest advisers defiantly beat back suggestions that the 81-year-old president showed signs of decline.”
Donald Trump, who polling shows handily won Thursday’s debate, wrote on social media:
Strange things happen in big time politics, and believe me, this is big time politics! During my debate on Thursday night with Crooked Joe Biden, the worst President in the history of our Country, and the person that is illegally, and strictly for political gain, trying to put me in jail, I watched a man, first hand, “CHOKE” under tremendous pressure, the likes of which he has never seen before. The strain of the illegality being used by his “Injustice” Department, the FBI, local Attorney Generals, and D.A.’s, have put an additional strain on him. FAKE NEWS CNN just announced that, at 51,300,000 viewers, it was the highest rated show in the history of CNN — and that doesn’t include other places it was shown. This was a “MONSTER” show, and it could be plainly and openly felt onstage. His speech on Friday was better, and he seems to be coming out of his trance, but AMERICA must ask itself, with all of the many dangers around, do we really want a President who CHOKES? I don’t think so!
World leader have also noted they witnessed moments when Biden’s behavior concerned them.
Some senior diplomats said “they had tracked a noticeable deterioration in the president’s faculties in meetings since last summer,” the Journal’s report said. “There were real doubts about how Biden could successfully manage a second term, but one senior European diplomat said U.S. administration officials in private discussions denied there was any problem.”
Earlier in June, diplomats described Biden’s performance at the Group of Seven summit in Italy as “mixed, with Biden appearing physically frailer than in the past but alert in many of the most important discussions,” the report said.
“The reading in Europe is that this has been an unmitigated disaster,” said Nathalie Tocci, director of the Institute of International Affairs in Rome and a former adviser to the EU’s foreign-affairs chiefs, referring to Biden’s attempts to reassure voters worried about his age. European officials and prominent commentators, she added, “have been talking about it. It’s something that has been known, always, that his age is his main Achilles’ heel.”
In the hours after Thursday’s debate, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk told reporters that the Democrats have a problem.
“I was afraid of this. It was to be expected that in a direct confrontation, in a debate, it would not be easy for the president,” said Tusk, who has known Biden for years. Asked what he thought of proposals to replace Biden with another candidate, he said: “They definitely have a problem. The reactions have been unambiguous.”
Norbert Röttgen, a senior lawmaker in Germany’s center-right main opposition party and the former chair of its parliament’s foreign-affairs committee, said on X: “The Democrats must switch horses now.” Slovenian former Prime Minister Janez Janša said he bet months ago that Biden would no longer be on the ballot in November.
“Back in Washington for a brief time between his trips to France and Italy, Biden appeared at a Juneteenth concert at the South Lawn. Video footage of the event showed him clapping noticeably out of time to the music. He needed assistance from the person seated next to him when it was time for him to get up,” the Journal’s report said.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, when asked about his awkward behavior at the event, dismissed the question. “That is just not a health issue,” she said.
The Journal added:
Throughout the ups and downs, first lady Jill Biden has been a strong supporter of her husband’s decision to run and stay in the race, according to two people familiar with the situation. Biden’s top aides insist publicly and around various Washington dining room tables that the president is mentally sharp. As recently as May, one aide in frequent contact with the president insisted that there has been absolutely no change in his performance.
And, when confronted with evidence that Biden is deteriorating, the White House pushes back hard, including when The Wall Street Journal reported this month that Biden showed signs of slipping in negotiations with congressional leaders. In February, before the Hur report was released on the probe into Biden’s handling of classified documents, White House lawyers sought to strip references about Biden’s memory from the report. The White House team of communications officials labeled Hur’s comments on Biden’s memory as “gratuitous” as they expressed relief that he wasn’t recommending criminal charges against Biden.
Biden at Camp David: ‘Informal’ gathering or the end? Dems ignored world leaders’ concerns added by Editor Two on
View all posts by Editor Two →