Three more congressmen called on President Joe Biden to end his candidacy after he sought to reassure Democrats at a news conference that he is fit to remain in the presidential race.
During the event, rather than allay fears about his age, mental agility and ability to defeat his Republican opponent, Biden referred to Kamala Harris as “Vice President Trump.”
Reps. Jim Himes of Connecticut, Scott Peters of California and Eric Sorensen of Illinois each issued statements shortly after Biden’s news conference ended urging him to withdraw.
That followed four members of Congress who had called on him to step aside before the event began.
The blunder came hours after a separate event during the NATO summit in Washington when Biden introduced Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky as Russian President Vladimir Putin, immediately correcting himself.
The news conference was ostensibly scheduled to mark the end of the 75th annual NATO summit in Washington, but it was dominated by questions over Biden’s advanced age and precarious political standing after the June 27 presidential debate, when he struggled to complete some thoughts and fumbled answers on a range of issues.
As he faced a variety of pointed questions about his health, stamina and mental acuity, Biden was at times dismissive or even self-deprecating, but the overall impression he left was that he is not capable of mounting a convincing campaign to remain in office.
A fanatical cult-like following is rising behind Trump in the wake of his criminal conviction on 34 counts of falsifying business records in New York and the jury determination in two civil cases that he committed sexual assault on columnist E. Jean Carroll.
At least 19 Democratic House members and one senator have called for Biden to bow out of the presidential race.
Hollywood executives, performers and thousands of others who attended a star-studded fundraiser for Biden in Los Angeles, including actor George Clooney, instead concluded that the Democrat cannot beat Donald Trump in November.
Other attendees say they watched a preview of Biden’s prime-time debate against Trump.
“I said to my wife, either he’ll do great at the debate, and we’ll realize he was just tired tonight, or he’ll perform like this and then the whole country will be talking about it,” said Jon Favreau, an Obama White House speechwriter who attended the LA event.
As a snowballing torrent of voices calling on Biden to allow the Democratic Party to pick a stronger nominee, the White House staff is insisting that the president will be the standard-bearer.
Documentarian Michael Moore has a bone to pick with the people close to Joe Biden, going so far as to accuse those encouraging him to remain in the race for another term as president of “elder abuse” on the latest episode of his Rumble podcast.
Moore pulled no punches as he made the assertion during the episode: “If I have to be the only one to stand up for Joe Biden here to protect him from the cruelest form of elder abuse I’ve ever been forced to watch, well then that’s what I’ll do,” he said.
The fallout from Biden’s poor performance in the debate and at his Thursday news conference, was underlined as major Democratic donors have put roughly $90 million in pledged donations on hold to the largest pro-Biden super PAC, Future Forward, for as long as Biden remains on the ticket, according to two people who have been briefed on the conversations.