US President Joe Biden is “absolutely not” pulling out of the US presidential race, his spokeswoman said on Wednesday, as pressure mounted following his disastrous debate performance against former US president Donald Trump.
Panic has gripped the Democratic Party in the wake of last week’s TV debate, and internal rumblings about finding a replacement candidate before November’s election have been amplified by polls showing Trump extending his lead.
The New York Times and CNN reported that Biden, 81, had acknowledged to a key ally that his re-election bid was on the line if he failed to quickly reassure the public that he was still up to the job.
Photo: AFP
White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre rejected those reports outright, insisting Biden has no intention of withdrawing.
“The president is clear-eyed and he is staying in the race,” she told reporters.
Biden told a call with campaign and party staffers that he is going nowhere.
“I’m in this race to the end and we’re going to win because when Democrats unite, we will always win. Just as we beat Donald Trump in 2020, we’re going to beat him again in 2024,” a source close to the campaign quoted him as saying.
He repeated that message in an emergency meeting with Democratic governors, who pledged their continued support, attendees said afterward.
“As the president continued to tell us, and show us, that he was all in ... we said that we would stand with him,” Maryland Governor Wes Moore told reporters alongside Minnesota Governor Tim Walz and New York Governor Kathy Hochul.
Walz said Biden was “fit to serve.”
Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, who also attended the meeting at the White House and is seen as one of the top picks to replace Biden if he should drop out, on social media platform X said that “he is in it to win it and I support him.”
Biden has admitted he performed poorly in the debate, and was blunt in a radio interview recorded on Wednesday with Wisconsin’s Civic Media.
“I screwed up. I made a mistake. That’s 90 minutes on stage. Look at what I’ve done in 3.5 years,” he said.
He echoed that sentiment in an interview with Pennsylvania’s WURD radio yesterday, saying “I had a bad debate.”
The Biden campaign has been desperate to reassure Democratic donors and voters that the president’s performance against Trump was a one-off.
However, party figures have voiced bafflement over what they see as deflection and excuses from the president and his aides.
Netflix cofounder Reed Hastings, one of the Democratic Party’s biggest donors, told the New York Times that Biden should withdraw.
“Biden needs to step aside to allow a vigorous Democratic leader to beat Trump and keep us safe and prosperous,” he said in an e-mail to the paper.
The concern was compounded by a New York Times poll conducted after the debate that showed Trump with his biggest lead ever over Biden — 49 percent to 43 percent of likely voters.
FREEDOM OF NAVIGATION: The UK would continue to reinforce ties with Taiwan ‘in a wide range of areas’ as a part of a ‘strong unofficial relationship,’ a paper said The UK plans to conduct more freedom of navigation operations in the Taiwan Strait and the South China Sea, British Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs David Lammy told the British House of Commons on Tuesday. British Member of Parliament Desmond Swayne said that the Royal Navy’s HMS Spey had passed through the Taiwan Strait “in pursuit of vital international freedom of navigation in the South China Sea.” Swayne asked Lammy whether he agreed that it was “proper and lawful” to do so, and if the UK would continue to carry out similar operations. Lammy replied “yes” to both questions. The
Two US House of Representatives committees yesterday condemned China’s attempt to orchestrate a crash involving Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim’s (蕭美琴) car when she visited the Czech Republic last year as vice president-elect. Czech local media in March last year reported that a Chinese diplomat had run a red light while following Hsiao’s car from the airport, and Czech intelligence last week told local media that Chinese diplomats and agents had also planned to stage a demonstrative car collision. Hsiao on Saturday shared a Reuters news report on the incident through her account on social media platform X and wrote: “I
SHIFT PRIORITIES: The US should first help Taiwan respond to actions China is already taking, instead of focusing too heavily on deterring a large-scale invasion, an expert said US Air Force leaders on Thursday voiced concerns about the Chinese People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) missile capabilities and its development of a “kill web,” and said that the US Department of Defense’s budget request for next year prioritizes bolstering defenses in the Indo-Pacific region due to the increasing threat posed by China. US experts said that a full-scale Chinese invasion of Taiwan is risky and unlikely, with Beijing more likely to pursue coercive tactics such as political warfare or blockades to achieve its goals. Senior air force and US Space Force leaders, including US Secretary of the Air Force Troy Meink and
Czech officials have confirmed that Chinese agents surveilled Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) during her visit to Prague in March 2024 and planned a collision with her car as part of an “unprecedented” provocation by Beijing in Europe. Czech Military Intelligence learned that their Chinese counterparts attempted to create conditions to carry out a demonstrative incident involving Hsiao, which “did not go beyond the preparation stage,” agency director Petr Bartovsky told Czech Radio in a report yesterday. In addition, a Chinese diplomat ran a red light to maintain surveillance of the Taiwanese
RSS