WASHINGTON — Capitol Hill is heading into a historic and pivotal week as the course of the 2024 presidential campaign hangs in the balance.
As lawmakers return from their Fourth of July vacation, Democrats face mounting questions about whether they will unite and urge President Joe Biden to abandon his reelection campaign. There are serious concerns that the 81-year-old incumbent is unable to serve another four years.
Time is running out. Biden continues to blame a mild illness for his poor performance in the recent debate with presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump and says he has no intention of giving up his spot atop the Democratic ticket with just over a month to go before he accepts his party’s nomination in Chicago.
The politics are expected to shift on Monday, when congressional Democrats who have so far publicly vacillated on what they think Biden should do will face their own colleagues in person in the nation’s capital. Over the past two weeks, everyone has heard directly from voters in their districts and states about the president’s mental fitness and his ability to continue doing his job.
“We’re in unprecedented territory, the likes of which we’ve rarely seen in this country,” Jim Manley, a former spokesman for Democratic Sens. Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., told USA TODAY. “Everybody’s got to hang in there, because it’s going to get wild.”
Preparing for the elections: Find out who’s running for president and compare their positions on key issues in our voter guide
Henry Waxman, a former Democrat in the House of Representatives who served in Congress for 40 years, added: “This is a critical moment and I think the decision has to be made very quickly.”
It still takes one hand to count the number of elected Democratic lawmakers willing to publicly call on Biden to abandon the 2024 campaign. But the list began to grow privately on Sunday. Whether it adds up in a way that will significantly disrupt this year’s presidential campaign remains unclear, though party leaders acknowledge that the coming days will be crucial in assessing the path ahead.
“Let’s face it, I think there are still questions in the minds of many voters,” Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., said Sunday on CNN. “I think there’s no question that the president’s performance in the debate raised questions in the minds of voters, not questions about his character or his decency or who he cares about or who he’s fighting for, but questions about whether this is still the same Joe Biden as he was.”
So far, Biden has rebuffed those who have called for his removal. During an interview with ABC News on Friday, the president said he had spoken to lawmakers who had encouraged him to stay in the race. Against that backdrop, Murphy called this coming week in Washington “absolutely critical.”
In an interview Sunday, Waxman said he expects the number of lawmakers seeking Biden’s removal to grow once they return to Washington. But the former congressman added that he’s not yet sure what difference that would make with the sitting president.
“It’s just about me trying to influence a man who, in his own opinion, is quite stubborn,” Waxman told USA TODAY.
Congress returns to Washington on Monday
Until now, elected officials have also been able to keep quiet and make news about Biden on their own time through scheduled interviews, their favorite social media, carefully crafted statements and staged events.
That changes on Monday, when the hallways of the U.S. Capitol are expected to be packed with reporters eager to hear from Democrats in particular whether they are willing to break with Biden or support their party’s undisputed leader.
“I’m sure they don’t want to talk,” former Sen. Trent Lott, a Republican from Mississippi who served in Congress for more than four decades, told USA TODAY on Sunday. “They have a tough decision to make. They don’t want to be disloyal. They don’t want to damage themselves politically in a presidential election year, but they’re going to have to face the reality of President Biden’s situation.”
Biden’s health and ability to lead the country have been the source of nonstop behind-the-scenes debate among party leaders and rank-and-file members since the June 27 debate with Trump. But those conversations have been anything but easy, as the question of whether Biden should step down almost immediately becomes a larger conversation about how (and who) to replace the president before Election Day, and what it all means for the party’s chances in November in its races for the White House and both chambers of Congress.
“This is not as clear-cut as everyone would like,” Rep. Debbie Dingell, D-Mich., said Sunday on CNN, noting that she had heard from voters during the congressional recess who said they did not want Biden to withdraw from the race.
Those internal Democratic conversations will accelerate even more in the coming hours and days.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., met with key Democratic committee leaders Sunday. The result: multiple media reports that Reps. Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., Adam Smith, D-Wash., Mark Takano, D-Calif., and Joe Morelle, D-N.Y., wanted Biden to resign. House members return Monday for a series of early evening votes. On the other side of the Capitol, the Senate resumes business Monday afternoon, with Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., chairing a weekly policy lunch with Democrats on Tuesday.
Neither Democratic leader has spoken out on any substantive level about Biden’s standing. Democrats say it matters if and when they do, given that so many rank-and-file members are otherwise conflicted about speaking so forcefully and unprecedentedly about their party’s leader, the sitting president of the United States.
“I think Schumer and Jeffries carry a lot of weight here,” Waxman said. “(Biden) has relied on both of them. He relies on their wisdom and their experience and he should take what they say very seriously.”
Five House Democrats have so far publicly called for Biden to withdraw from the 2024 race: Reps. Lloyd Doggett, D-Texas; Seth Moulton, D-Mass.; Mike Quigley, D-Ill.; Raúl Grijalva, D-Ariz.; and Angie Craig, D-Minn. Craig made the request after watching Biden’s interview with ABC on Friday, which was meant to calm concerns. In the Senate, Rep. Mark Warner, D-Va., is reportedly organizing a group of his party colleagues to join him in calling on Biden to withdraw from the presidential race.
For those Democrats who have spoken out but stopped short of saying Biden should go immediately, many have expressed concerns about the president, saying it’s his decision whether it’s time to step down. They also don’t hide their concerns about the 78-year-old Trump as the likely benefactor of the Democratic unrest.
“Given Joe Biden’s incredible record, given Donald Trump’s terrible record, he should wipe the floor with Donald Trump,” Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., said Sunday during an appearance on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
“Joe Biden is running against a criminal. It shouldn’t even be close, and there’s only one reason it’s close, and that’s the president’s age,” added Schiff, a former House Intelligence Committee chairman and floor manager during Trump’s first impeachment trial who is now a leading contender to win one of California’s U.S. Senate seats in November.
Democrats Don’t Like ABC Interview
Biden’s interview with ABC News on Friday night did little to quell the party’s internal panic following his performance in the first presidential debate, with the president repeatedly insisting he would go nowhere in 2024.
In his interview on Sunday, Schiff urged Biden to “slow down and take his time to make the right decision, which is best for the country.” The California Democrat added that Vice President Kamala Harris, if she were to replace Biden in November, “could very well win overwhelmingly” over Trump.
“But before we make a decision about who else it should be, the president has to make a decision about whether it will be him,” he said.
Several of Biden’s longtime allies in Congress are now saying the president needs to hold more unscripted events this week to show that the debate performance was an aberration and not a sign of cognitive decline. “Only through such a public process can he demonstrate that (the debate) was simply a bad night and that his previous ability to define the issues and seek common sense solutions remains undiminished,” said a spokesman for Sen. Angus King, I-Maine.
Biden’s week ahead will be a busy one for the White House. The president is hosting world leaders in Washington for the 75th anniversary summit of NATO, a series of highly choreographed events that leave little room for the kind of presence many members of Congress want Biden to give voters.
Biden is also looking beyond the seven days ahead to the week after that, when Trump will be in Milwaukee to accept his party’s presidential nomination at the Republican National Convention. According to a White House official, Biden plans to visit Austin, Texas, on July 15 to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act at the LBJ Presidential Library. He will then head to Las Vegas to speak at the NAACP annual conferences on July 16 and with UnidosUS on July 17.
The president held no public events on Saturday. On Sunday morning in Philadelphia, Biden sat briefly at the airport with Pennsylvania’s two Democratic senators, Bob Casey and John Fetterman. He then spoke at the Mount Airy Church of God in Christ, using written notes from the predominantly black church and making no reference to the calls to step aside.
During the church service, Pastor J. Louis Felton had the congregation cringing as he spoke about how “the enemy has been trying to divide us for so long.”
“There’s no election we can’t win,” Felton said. He also addressed Biden directly, adding: “Don’t let anyone talk about your age. You’re a young snot-nosed kid.”
Featuring: Riley Beggin and Ken Tran.