Biden Holds Firm as Worried Democrats Take Their Case Directly to Him

After the House minority leader visited the White House to share Democrats’ concerns over his candidacy, the president held a tense virtual session with lawmakers in which he resisted a call to step aside.

Representative Hakeem Jeffries at a lectern gesturing at reporters.

Representative Hakeem Jeffries, the House Democratic leader, has offered no hint of whether he shared his own conclusions with President Biden about whether he thinks the president should step aside.

By Annie Karni, New York Times

Reporting from Washington

July 12, 2024

6:29 p.m. ET

President Biden on Friday faced escalating pressure from Democrats questioning his viability as a candidate, as rank-and-file lawmakers continued to call on him to end his re-election bid and the president resisted their entreaties, privately defending his decision to continue running.

One day after a serviceable news conference that had been meant to quell the growing resistance within the party to Mr. Biden’s candidacy, lawmakers returned to their home districts anxious and uncertain about how to proceed. Their House leader made it clear directly to Mr. Biden that his members still harbored deep concerns over the president’s candidacy. And as he campaigned in the battleground state of Michigan, prominent Democrats — including the governor and both of the party’s senators — were not by his side.

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, a stalwart Biden surrogate who has been on the road promoting her own book, was expected to be absent from an event he held in Detroit. So were Senator Gary Peters, Democrats’ Senate campaign chief; Senator Debbie Stabenow; and Representative Elissa Slotkin, who is running to replace Ms. Stabenow and has told donors that Mr. Biden is trailing former President Donald J. Trump in her campaign’s state polls.

Back in Washington, Representative Hakeem Jeffries, Democrat of New York and the minority leader, met one-on-one at the White House with Mr. Biden on Thursday night to discuss the deep concerns many of his members harbor about his ability to defeat Mr. Trump in November.

In a letter to colleagues on Friday that notably did not endorse Mr. Biden’s decision to stay in the race, Mr. Jeffries did not reveal what he had told the president, but said he had passed along what he had been hearing from Democrats — many of whom have told him over the past week that the president must step aside.

“In my conversation with President Biden, I directly expressed the full breadth of insight, heartfelt perspectives and conclusions about the path forward that the caucus has shared in our recent time together,” Mr. Jeffries wrote.

On Friday, during an at-times tense virtual meeting with members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, Mr. Biden pushed back on Representative Mike Levin, a vulnerable California Democrat, who spoke up to say he thought the president needed to step aside.

“That’s why I’m going out and letting people touch me, poke me, ask me questions,” Mr. Biden responded, according to someone familiar with the call who shared a partial transcript. “I think I know what I’m doing.”

Mr. Biden also acknowledged that promoting his achievements as president would not answer voters’ concerns.

“‘That was great when you were feeling good, Biden — are you OK now?’ That’s what’s underlying. That’s what people are worried about,” he told Mr. Levin. “It’s a legitimate concern for people, but that’s why I think it’s important — I’ve got to get out and show people everything from how well I move to how much I know and that I’m still in good charge.”

Not long after, Mr. Levin went public with his call for Mr. Biden to withdraw.

“Making this statement is not easy,” Mr. Levin wrote. “I have deep respect for President Biden’s five-plus decades of public service and incredible appreciation for the work we’ve done together these last three and a half years. But I believe the time has come for President Biden to pass the torch.”

The exchange came as the president continued to press his case and try to prove his capabilities in small meetings with lawmakers and encounters with voters.

“I promise you, I’m OK,” he told voters in Detroit, returning to the phrase a second time as he acknowledged questions about his advance age.

Earlier Friday, Mr. Biden also spoke virtually with members of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus. He was scheduled to speak with members of the New Democrat Coalition over the weekend.

Senator Alex Padilla, Democrat of California, said that during his conversation with the Hispanic Caucus, the president “engaged with us on strategy and demonstrated once again that he is cleareyed on the path forward to defeating Trump and MAGA extremism.”

But other members left perturbed. Representative Marie Gluesenkamp Perez of Washington, a vulnerable Democrat who has called for Mr. Biden to step aside and to resign, and Representative Gabe Vasquez, a vulnerable New Mexico Democrat, tried repeatedly to ask a question during the session. But each time they used the “raised hand” feature, it was lowered by an organizer, according to two people familiar with the call, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

The discontent during the meeting was reported earlier by the nonprofit journalism website NOTUS.

Amid the uncertainty, Representative James E. Clyburn of South Carolina, the president’s biggest defender in the House and the man responsible for resuscitating his campaign four years ago, tried to shut down debate about Mr. Biden’s future while dangling the possibility that he still might change his mind closer to the Democratic convention in August.

Mr. Clyburn said he was “all in” for Mr. Biden, “no matter which direction he goes, no matter what method he takes. I’m with Joe Biden.” He added, “If he decides to change his mind later on, then we’ll respond to that.”

In a brief letter he sent to House Democrats on Friday morning, Mr. Jeffries, a deliberate politician and relatively untested leader, offered few details about his meeting with Mr. Biden, which took place at the White House after the president’s high-stakes news conference. The private meeting, Mr. Jeffries told his colleagues, had been set at his request.

But in a moment when every word from Democratic leaders is being parsed, it was notable that Mr. Jeffries, who has said blandly that he supports Mr. Biden, left out any endorsement of the president in the three-paragraph missive.

Mr. Jeffries also did not say whether he had shared a conclusion with Mr. Biden about what he thought the president should do, based on his conversations with members and data he has reviewed. Congressional Democrats have been quietly passing around grim polling numbers suggesting that Mr. Biden would lose to Mr. Trump and potentially drag down House and Senate candidates with him.

Mr. Jeffries, whose job is to steer Democrats back to the majority in the House, has been participating in group meetings and one-on-one conversations with members for almost two weeks since Mr. Biden’s disastrous debate performance sent Democrats into a panic about his candidacy. Mr. Biden’s news conference on Thursday left many Democrats concerned that the conversation about his viability will drag on, with the party divided on the best path forward.

More than 60 of the 213 House Democrats have publicly reiterated their support for Mr. Biden, but a steadily growing number have also called for him to step aside.

On Friday, a total of 19 House Democrats had publicly called on him to go, and more were expected to. Those who had held off until after the news conference to call for Mr. Biden to step aside said they took no pleasure in doing so.

Representative Brittany Pettersen, Democrat of Colorado, wrote on social media, “This decision is so painful, but my son and my constituents can’t suffer the consequences of inaction at this critical moment.”

Many more agree with them but have remained silent publicly, in the belief that speaking out may only cause the president to dig in further. Those Democrats have shared their concerns privately with Mr. Jeffries and are hoping that he, along with Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, the former speaker, will privately encourage Mr. Biden to end his run.

Some were under pressure from their constituents to speak out. Representative Cori Bush, a progressive Democrat from Missouri, said that she was still listening to constituents but that “right now, 100 percent of the phone calls into our office are asking me to ask the president to step out of the race.”

The state of play left Democrats frozen in a complicated standoff with a president who does not appear to be willing to stand down.

A spokeswoman for Mr. Jeffries declined to comment about the tone and tenor of the meeting.

“The letter sent by Leader Hakeem Jeffries to his House Democratic colleagues speaks for itself,” said Christiana Stephenson, a spokeswoman for Mr. Jeffries. “It was a private conversation that will remain private.”

Nicholas Nehamas contributed reporting from Detroit.