WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden has privately acknowledged that the next stretch of days are critical to whether he can save his reelection bid for president, making clear to an ally Tuesday that he understands what would prompt him to accept: “It’s just not working.”
“He sees the moment. He’s clear-eyed,” this person told CNN.
There is no ambiguity for the president about what potential series of events in the coming weeks would ultimately prompt him to acknowledge that his attempt to make amends for last week’s disastrous debate on CNN aren’t working, according to this ally.
It would be a scenario in which “the polls are plummeting, the fundraising is drying up, and the interviews are going badly,” they said. “He’s not oblivious.”
In the days since Biden’s stunningly halting debate showing, Democrats across the country have expressed grave concern. Some elected officials have even begun to publicly call on Biden to drop out for the good of the party.
The New York Times reported separately on Wednesday that Biden acknowledged that he may not be able to save his campaign if he does not perform well in public events over the next several days. The White House and Biden’s campaign have denied that reporting.
In Tuesday’s private conversation, Biden was also “chastened” as he “blamed himself” – not his staff – for the debate performance.
“He said: ‘I have done way too much foreign policy,’” this person said. “He said to me: ‘I have over done it. I did too much travel. I did too much back and forth. I did too much time change. I had a cold. That was a mistake.’”
Biden was referring to his back-to-back trips to France and Italy right before the debate, even though he had nearly two weeks between his return on June 15 from Italy for the G7 meeting and the debate on June 27, according to a CNN review of his schedule.
But as much as Biden suggested that the jet lag and exhaustion from his travels had been detrimental, he also signaled that he wanted to put the debate in the rearview mirror in his conversation with the ally.
And at one point in their conversation, Biden asked this person for advice – and then there was silence, the person told CNN, as the president waited for input.
The president had also said at a fundraiser in Virginia Tuesday night that going on two significant foreign trips right before the debate had been a bad idea.
During that fundraiser, Biden joked that he “almost fell asleep onstage” during the debate last week and blamed his poor performance on his grueling travel schedule, according to pool reports.
“I decided to travel around the world a couple of times … shortly before the debate … I didn’t listen to my staff … and then I almost fell asleep onstage,” Biden said during the fundraiser. The remark was met with brief laughter from those in attendance, according to a recording of the president’s remarks.
Multiple reporters who were in the room said that they believed the “fell asleep” line appeared intended to be a joke and that Biden was trying to make light of the situation in a self-deprecating way, but it did not land, in their view.
Since the debate, Biden has faced one of the toughest stretches of his presidency and his reelection campaign is reeling. Campaign officials are scrambling to calm donors who were shocked by Biden’s performance. The White House announced that Biden is expected to meet with Democratic governors and congressional leaders Wednesday after some demanded a meeting with the president. Some officials have been turned off by the Biden campaign’s dismissiveness over their concerns about the president’s health. On Tuesday, a Democratic member of Congress became the first to publicly ask Biden to drop out of the race.
This story has been updated with additional reporting.
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