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By Khaleda Rahman
National Correspondent
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President Joe Biden could quit the presidential race within days as those close to him have privately voiced their concerns about his candidacy, according to reports.
Biden is isolating as he battles a COVID infection at his home in Delaware. The pressure for him to drop out of the 2024 race is continuing to mount after a poor debate performance in late June raised fresh concerns about the 81-year-old's age and ability to beat former president Donald Trump, the Republican nominee, in November and lead the country for another four-year term.
After some days of relative quiet following the assassination attempt on Trump at the weekend, Montana Senator Jon Tester on Thursday became the second Democrat in the chamber to call for Biden to step aside, joining at least two dozen congressional Democrats.
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Biden has publicly remained defiant and said he will not quit the race and that decisions about the future of his candidacy remain his alone.
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Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi has told Democrats that she thinks Biden could soon be persuaded to leave the race, The Washington Post reported on Thursday, citing three Democratic officials.
Two senior House Democrats believe the announcement could come in as soon as three days, CBS News reported on Thursday night. The lawmakers were not named.
Meanwhile, some members of Biden's cabinet have been having private discussions about whether his campaign is at breaking point and if it is time for his closest advisers to confront him about his prospects, Bloomberg reported, citing a person familiar with the matter.
That comes after reports that former president Barack Obama has conveyed his concerns about Biden's candidacy to allies in recent days and Pelosi has privately told Biden that Democrats could lose the ability to win the House if he doesn't step aside.
Obama has expressed concerns about Biden's chances of winning in November and that he needs to seriously consider whether he should continue running for reelection, The Washington Post reported, citing multiple people briefed on Obama's thinking.
Meanwhile, Pelosi presented polling to Biden that she argued indicated that Biden could not beat Trump in November in a recent phone call, CNN reported, citing four sources briefed on the call. The president pushed back, saying he had seen polls indicating he could win, one source said.
A spokesperson for Pelosi told CNN that the "feeding frenzy from the press based on anonymous sources misrepresents any conversations" she may have had with the president.
Meanwhile, the Biden campaign has continued to dismiss talk about the president quitting the race.
"The President is his party's nominee, having won 14 million votes during the Democratic primary," a campaign spokesperson told the Post on Thursday. "He's running for reelection, and that will not change until he wins reelection."
The campaign has been contacted for further comment via email.
On Friday, the Democratic National Committee's rulemaking arm is set to meet to discuss plans for a virtual roll call vote nominating the president in August ahead of the party's convention later in the month, despite anger at those plans moving forward while the party remains divided about Biden's candidacy.
And Biden, in an interview with Univision taped shortly before he tested positive for COVID, insisted that he "feels good" about his chances in November.
Biden said that many people don't focus on the November election until September. "All the talk about who's leading and where and how, is kind of, you know, everything so far between Trump and me has been basically even," he said in an excerpt of the interview released on Thursday.
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