Determined to push forward, Biden tightens his circle and grows combative

WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden spent more than a week in meetings and on phone calls addressing Democrats’ concerns about his candidacy with a positive, conciliatory message about his path forward. At times, he even sounded contrite about his uneven debate performance, which prompted calls for him to suspend his re-election campaign.

He took blunt questions about his mental acuity in stride. He smiled through suggestions from allies that he take a cognitive test or consider allowing someone younger to take his place on the Democratic ticket. He agreed that his supporters have legitimate concerns and promised to show them he’s up for the rigor of a presidential campaign and another four years in the White House.

Then he’d had enough.

In the past few days, Biden has started to privately convey a new message to Democrats: The conversation about my future is over, and I’m getting irritated that you’re not realizing that. Biden has called several prominent allies individually to tell them to spread the word.

“We think we’ve got a good plan to fight through this,” a senior Biden aide said.

Nearly three weeks since his rocky debate performance that shook his party, Biden is intent on shutting down dissent among Democrats in order to move forward and focus on defeating Donald Trump. And after hearing out his critics, he’s tightening his circle to those he‘s relied on the longest — and who support his path ahead.

Biden’s thinning patience for questions about his candidacy were on display as he campaigned Friday in Detroit telling a large, effusive crowd: “You made me the nominee. No one else. Not the press, not the pundits, not the insiders, not donors.”

“And I’m not going anywhere,” Biden added.

In private calls with Democratic lawmakers on Saturday, he also made clear he finds the continued conversations about whether he should remain in the race exasperating.

“Stay positive you are sounding defensive,” read a note one of Biden’s aides handed to him during a call with members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, which the president then read aloud. (Two people familiar with the call said Biden intentionally read the note for a moment of "levity.")

On a later call with the moderate New Democratic Coalition, many of whom are in tough re-election fights, Biden grew frustrated at times, according to people familiar with the call.

When Rep. Jason Crow, D-Colo., told Biden that “without a major change, we are facing a loss in November” and that many voters are losing confidence he can “project strength, vigor and inspire confidence” as commander in chief through a second term, the president lashed out, according to the people familiar with the call.

Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash., who was on the call and has urged Biden to step aside, described the president as “defensive” and said the “most troubling aspect of it was he said, 'We’re fine.'”

“Which is, I think, contrary to most of our understanding of current facts,” Smith added.

One person familiar with Saturday’s calls disputed that Biden was defensive, saying he proactively sought feedback from the lawmakers and told them: “Let me know what you think I should be doing that I’m not to support [you]. Nobody knows the community better than you.”

The assassination attempt on Trump unfolded just hours later, and some of the plans the president and his aides had for plowing ahead with his campaign were put on hold. But on Tuesday, Biden was back on schedule, traveling to Nevada for events this week that focus on Black and Latino voters.

At an event hosted by the NAACP, Biden, who is fond of comparisons to Franklin Roosevelt, instead found kinship in Harry Truman’s famous quote that if you want a friend in Washington, get a dog.

“After the last couple weeks I know what he means,” he said.

'Shut it down'

In the first week after the June 27 debate, Biden kept a relatively low profile. He headlined a rally the day after and did several pre-planned fundraisers. But then he largely retreated from public view, consulting his family and his closest advisers and making some phone calls to allies.

Over the course of the following week, the president ramped up his outreach to key Democrats. He began doing some of the things they asked him to do to allay their concerns about his candidacy, such as sitting for a prime-time interview and holding a nearly hourlong news conference.

He became entrenched in his desire to continue his re-election campaign and tightened up his already-small circle of key advisers, according to five people familiar with the internal discussions.

As the president and his team privately assessed the gravity of his political circumstances, their discussions also shifted to be mindful of potential damage to his standing in history, according to two close Biden allies.

One of the allies described Biden’s private conversations with close aides last week as more “reality-based” than they were in the days after the debate. Those conversations included discussion about how Biden might be viewed if his time in office ends in a prolonged stalemate with his own party — or by losing to an opponent he says would unravel American democracy, the two close allies said.

“That just doesn’t reflect the president’s conversations with his advisers,” White House spokesperson Andrew Bates said in a statement.

By the end of last week the president and his team had settled on a strategy forward, the five people familiar with the internal discussions said.

That strategy, as described by multiple Biden aides and allies, is to run out the clock.

Biden aides are looking to leave Democrats little space for pushing him out of the race. The top Biden aide said the hope has been for the Republican National Convention to become “a tipping point” where Democrats started focusing on Trump, not Biden.

“We’re hopeful people will say, ‘OK, well, he’s doing what we asked for, and he’s doing it effectively,’” the aide said.

Another close Biden ally described the approach this way: “Shut it down and play out the clock.”

The president’s aides have expected more Democrats to urge him to exit the race. But they also hope that if he can weather the coming week or so, without a significant misstep or a devastating poll, the calls for him to step aside will subside.

“The theme on the campaign is onward,” a Biden campaign official said. “We know the challenge we have and the work we have to do. It’s going to take time and effort.”

Bates denied the president and his aides are factoring any potential major adversarial developments into his plans.

The process for Democrats to formally nominate their 2024 candidate for president is set to begin later this month. Biden’s nomination is expected to occur before the Democratic National Convention on Aug. 19 in a virtual roll of state delegations in late July or early August. Democratic National Committee members are expected to set the precise date in the coming days.

Some of the president’s aides said the adversity facing his campaign has in some ways fueled Biden’s desire to remain in the race.

“It’s breathing some life into him,” a second Biden campaign official said.

But there’s also a sense among some of the president’s aides that there could be a willingness to reassess if a major development shook up the race, according to three people familiar with the internal discussions.

Biden suggested as much himself during at a news conference last Thursday. Asked about potentially reconsidering his decision to continue his campaign if aides presented him with certain data, Biden said “No, unless they came back and said, ‘There’s no way you can win.’”

“No one is saying that,” he added. “No poll says that.”

Bates denied there’s any openness to reassessing if there was a major development in the race, despite the president saying he is open to that if he was presented with polling that showed he can’t win or if he had a serious medical issue arise.

Shrinking the inner circle

The president’s advisers, under the directive that he’s committed to staying in the race, huddle every day on a 9 a.m. call to discuss his path forward, including whether what the president is doing is enough, and in recent days they added another one at 9 p.m. to assess the status of their efforts at the end of the day, according to a source familiar with the calls. The calls are led by White House Chief of Staff Jeff Zients.

In many of the conversations about his future, Biden has resorted to leaning on the advisers he’s most comfortable with and who have served with him for decades — namely Steve Ricchetti and Mike Donilon — as well as family members who have encouraged him not to abandon his candidacy, according to five people familiar with the internal dynamics. As such, he’s increasingly cut out other top aides, like Biden campaign co-chair Jennifer O’Malley Dillon and White House senior adviser Anita Dunn, from some discussions, these people said.

“The circle is smaller than ever,” said one of the people familiar with the internal dynamics.

Bates, the White House spokesperson, said in a statement that Biden is proud of the team he’s built and “has not made changes to the group of advisers he consults.”

“The president has been having a wide range of candid discussions with members of Congress, governors, mayors, labor leaders, advocates and others,” Bates said.

One person close to the inner circle said Dunn has been closely working with longtime Biden adviser Bruce Reed on developing a plan for focusing on the president’s agenda for the future, including a plan for his first 100 days of a second term if he’s re-elected.

The strategy to press through questions about whether Biden should remain on the Democratic ticket involves a mix of augmenting any public show of support for him and trying to head off additional defections.

Last week, Biden campaign co-chair Jeffrey Katzenberg, for instance, unsuccessfully tried to stop George Clooney, a major Democratic fundraiser, from calling on Biden to drop out, after the actor privately gave the Biden campaign a heads-up about his plans to publish a scathing op-ed in The New York Times, according to three people familiar with the effort.

At the same time, Biden aides had prominent allies with him in Detroit last Friday, and on Tuesday in Nevada — including the influential Rep. James Clyburn, D-S.C.

Biden aides have said none of the campaign’s internal polling since the debate shows a dramatic shift in the race.

But some data received by operatives running re-election campaigns in swing congressional districts has made Democrats nervous and more polling is expected to be received on how Democrats in the House and Senate races are faring.

One Democratic strategist who reviewed recent internal polling across multiple battleground states and vulnerable congressional seats said, “The president’s numbers are rapidly deteriorating in the swing states and districts that Democrats need to hold the Senate and win the House.” The strategist said the polling showed a drop of 5 to 10 points since their last surveys.

Simon Rosenberg, a veteran Democratic operative, is pushing back on the narrative that the polling has collapsed for Biden, saying if there’s evidence, then it should be put forward for public inspection.

“People have got to be a little bit careful with the data,” Rosenberg said, referring to a 538 forecast on Friday that showed Biden had slightly better odds of winning in November than Trump. “There’s not been any big shift in the race, which is what we all believed on the Saturday after the debate.”