Biden eyes Georgia and Texas trips from Rehoboth bunker
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Biden officials are telling Democratic critics that President Biden is eager to prove them wrong and plans to hit the campaign trail once he recovers from COVID, with potential trips to Georgia and Texas in the coming days, according to people familiar with the matter.
Why it matters: As he battles COVID in his Delaware beach house, Biden appears immune to the calls from his own party, including from the Senate's two most endangered Democrats, to drop out of the race.
- First Lady Jill Biden, who is traveling to Paris for the summer Olympics, will also headline a fundraiser, where the party will collect checks from Americans living abroad.
- In public and in private, Biden campaign manager Jen O'Malley Dillon, made a forceful case for why he is going to stay in the race, with some frank talk for her staff: "Don't watch cable news all the time."
- But outside of Biden's bubble, the calls for Biden to bow out grew louder, with Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) saying: "I think the President should end his campaign."
Driving the news: The president and his inner circle are on a collision course with the party he leads.
- "It feels stuck at the moment," said a senior Democratic elected official. "That's not to say it isn't going to stay stuck."
Senior Democratic officials are urging Biden to make a decision on his future this weekend, with many of them peppering Biden's most trusted advisers with arguments for why he should bow out for the good of the party.
- On Friday, one of those core advisers, Steve Ricchetti, traveled to Delaware to be available for face-to-face conversions with Biden when his COVID status allows it.
- Internally, some Biden officials thought that the ending was near and it was only a matter of time before Biden dropped out of the race.
- "It's a fairly universal sentiment internally that we have reached the end of the road," said a Biden aide, though they added that they weren't sure the president and some select aides felt the same way.
Some aides outside the inner circle have taken to hoping the end is near, sooner rather than later.
- Without prompting, two Biden aides separately compared recent missives from senior staff to North Korean government propaganda.
Zoom in: Ricchetti arrived in Rehoboth with real-time information on how red-hot the many party stalwarts are about Biden's insistence on staying in the race.
- Since the debate, Ricchetti has been in close contact with lawmakers, donors and party leaders, many of whom have explained to him why they think Biden should bow out of the presidential race.
- While Ricchetti has challenged some of their assumptions, he also makes it clear that he is interested in hearing – and digesting – their views, according to the people familiar with the matter.
Between the lines: Ricchetti frequently spends the weekends with Biden in Rehoboth and Biden typically has a core group of aides who travel with him.
- "When the president travels, the White House always includes several members of senior staff. Annie Tomasini and Steve Ricchetti, who often travel with the President, will have the shift in Rehoboth," said Saloni Sharma, a White House spokesperson.
- That group shrank after his COVID diagnosis on Wednesday, with only three aides traveling him in the motorcade to his vacation house. Biden's COVID symptoms have "improved meaningfully," the White House physician said Friday.
Zoom out: Throughout the day, more Democratic lawmakers went public with their calls for the president to drop out of the race.
Still, the Biden campaign insists that Biden has no intention of stepping aside.
- "I talked to him this morning – he sounds like sh*t because he's not feeling that well," Dillon said Friday on a DNC call, noting his recent COVID diagnosis.
- "But he is doing the work, and he is focused on what you guys are doing," she said.
