Despite repeated assurances that he’s in the race and expects to beat Donald Trump in November, President Joe Biden is facing growing pressure to step down as the Democratic Party’s nominee. The crescendo has built up throughout the NATO summit this week and heading into next week’s Republican National Convention, so buckle up.
Michael Bennet of Colorado became the first Democratic senator to publicly question Biden’s candidacy on Tuesday. And on Wednesday, Democratic Sen. Peter Welch of Vermont called for Biden to move on in an op-ed. Earlier that day, Hollywood star and Biden mega-fundraiser George Clooney penned a guest essay in the New York Timessaying that while he loves Biden, he should go.
“It’s devastating to say it, but the Joe Biden I was with three weeks ago at the fundraiser was not the Joe ‘big F-ing deal’ Biden of 2010,” Clooney writes. “He wasn’t even the Joe Biden of 2020. He was the same man we all witnessed at the debate.”
Ten Democrats in the House have called on Biden to step aside so far, an outcome that veteran strategist James Carville calls “inevitable.” So has New York’s Lt. Gov. Antonio Delgado. Axios reports that Chuck Schumer is privately saying he’sopen to the idea, though the Democrat Senate majority leader continues to publicly say he’s for Biden, and Politico reports that Nancy Pelosi has privately said Biden should stand down from the race.
The White House, and Biden himself, insist he’s staying. So far, the vast majority of congressional Democrats have either backed Biden or stayed silent on the question of his future, but if things keep going like this, the dam could break. And soon.