WASHINGTON/DALLAS: U.S. President Joe Biden faced fresh doubts on Wednesday about his re-election chances from two heavyweights– Nancy Pelosi and George Clooney — who may influence other Democratic lawmakers and financial donors.
Biden must decide quickly whether to stay in the 2024 White House race, former House Speaker Pelosi, a longtime Biden ally, said on MSNBC while declining to say definitively that she wanted him to run.
Hollywood star Clooney, a Democrat who co-hosted a fundraiser for Biden last month, withdrew his support with a damning opinion piece in the New York Times saying that Biden was not the same man he was in 2020.
“It’s devastating to say it, but the Joe Biden I was with three weeks ago at the fund-raiser was not the Joe ‘big F-ing deal’ Biden of 2010. He wasn’t even the Joe Biden of 2020. He was the same man we all witnessed at the debate,” Clooney wrote. “We are not going to win in November with this president. On top of that, we won’t win the House, and we’re going to lose the Senate,” he added.
Pelosi’s remarks, which ignored Biden’s repeated insistence that he is staying in the race, suggested he could face a fresh wave of calls from fellow Democrats to exit the race.
For nearly two weeks after his halting June 27 debate performance, the 81-year-old Biden has sought to stem defections by Democratic lawmakers, donors and other allies worried he might lose the November 5 vote to Republican Donald Trump, 78.
Biden’s campaign chair Jen O’Malley Dillon and senior advisers Mike Donilon and Steve Ricchetti will brief Senate Democrats at a lunch on Thursday, Biden’s campaign said.
Asked to comment on Pelosi’s remarks and Clooney’s article, Biden’s campaign pointed to a letter he sent Democrats in Congress that said he was “firmly committed” to staying in the race and beating Trump.
Asked at the NATO summit whether he still had Pelosi’s support, Biden responded by raising a triumphant fist.
However, other Democrats’ echoed Pelosi on Wednesday, suggesting Biden’s efforts to quell dissent within his party had not succeeded. Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal said he was “deeply concerned” about Biden’s ability to win the race.
But public defections remain a small segment of the 213 Democratic-aligned House members, and the party’s leadership continues to back Biden publicly. No members of the Senate have publicly said he should stand aside, though Senator Michael Bennet of Colorado said on Tuesday he did not believe Biden could beat Trump.
Eager to change the story, the President has surrounded himself with communities of his staunchest supporters, including Black Democratic lawmakers and voters. His campaign has framed sticking with Biden as a return of the loyalty he has shown them through his half-century of public life.
(REUTERS)
