The fate of the Democratic ticket will likely be determined on Sunday as President Biden gathers with family at Camp David to discuss the future of his re-election campaign following the worst debate performance in history, according to a new report.
Insiders close to the 81-year-old president say there’s only one person who can convince him to step aside, and it’s the same person who convinced him to go for a second term: Jill Biden.
NBC News reports:
President Joe Biden is expected to discuss the future of his re-election campaign with family at Camp David on Sunday, following a nationally televised debate Thursday that left many fellow Democrats worried about his ability to beat former President Donald Trump in November, according to five people familiar with the matter.
Biden’s trip was planned before Thursday’s debate. He and first lady Jill Biden are scheduled to join their children and grandchildren there late Saturday.
So far, the party’s top leaders have offered public support for Biden, including in tweets posted by former presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton. 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, said two sources apprised of those discussions, even as they all publicly back the president.
One Democratic House member who believes Biden should drop out of the race — but has yet to call for that publicly — told NBC News that three colleagues expressed the same sentiment to him during votes on the House floor Friday.
Jill Biden has long been the real power behind the throne, according to multiple accounts.
Historian Doug Brinkley compared the current First Lady to some of her predecessors, noting that Presidents Harry Truman and Lyndon Johnson both exited stage right at the behest of their wives.
Jill isn’t like that, though.
“She is the vital part. Dr. Jill Biden is it,” he said. “You know, if you go back to 1952, Harry Truman could have run, and he didn’t. Why? Well, the Korean War and, you know, other reasons. But — but Bess wanted to go back to Independence [Missouri] — she didn’t like it in Washington.”
“If you cut to ’68, Lyndon Johnson was – quit in March of ’68 and people will say because of Walter Cronkite. No,” he continued. “The big thing was his health was bad, he had a bad heart, he was smoking, high blood pressure, tension, and Lady Bird Johnson didn’t want to stay in. And she wanted – let’s go back to Texas and convinced Johnson to step down.”
“That’s not the case with Jill Biden. She likes power. She wants to stay. She wants some sense of revenge,” he continued. “She teaches in Virginia Community College. This milieu around our building here, this is her home. And the idea of relinquishing it all after you’ve taken the slings and arrows of the last years of attacks, and at the last minute, just when you get all the delegates you’re going to say, I’m going to open it up to a bunch of people — it’s very childish when you read those kind of reports.”
The New York Times has signaled that Jill Biden wants to stay and fight, noting that “she says she’s all in.”
“As Joe said earlier today, he’s not a young man,” Jill told a group of donors gathered in Manhattan on Friday afternoon. “After last night’s debate, he said: ‘You know, Jill, I don’t know what happened. I didn’t feel that great.’ I said, ‘Look, Joe, we are not going to let 90 minutes define the four years that you’ve been president.’”
Just how committed is she? One source has pushed back on the idea that the family is even considering dropping out, claiming that the gathering is for a Vogue photoshoot with famed photographer Annie Leibowitz
.@jeffzeleny reports this AM that the Biden family meeting was pre-planned and that it includes a photo shoot with Annie Leibowitz.
— Alex Thompson (@AlexThomp) June 30, 2024
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