By President Biden has given a new out to Democrats who want to see him kicked off of the party’s presidential ticket. During an interview with BET, the president claimed that he would think about dropping out if doctors diagnosed him with a “medical condition.”
Shortly after the interview, which went poorly, Biden’s team announced he has test positive for COVID 19, an illness he had 18 months ago. The president said he’ll have to quarantine, which should help him run out of the clock on the “rebellion” he faces within his party before being “virtually nominated” before the Democratic Convention starts.
After testing positive for COVID, President Biden arrived at the airport in Las Vegas to fly to Delaware, where he will self-isolate.
Asked how he felt, Biden gave a thumbs up and said, “Good. I feel good.”
He was not wearing a mask as he boarded Air Force One.
— Sara Cook (@saraecook) July 17, 2024
The New York Post argues that it is “the clearest indication yet that he may be faltering” and that Biden may step back from his promise to pursue another term in the White House.
The 81-year-old president made the remark in a BET interview taped Tuesday when asked what it would take to prompt him to reconsider his candidacy.
“If I had some medical condition that emerged, if somebody, if doctors came to me and said, you got this problem and that problem,” Biden said in an excerpt released Wednesday.
In the same interview, Biden said that he feels the need to run again — rather than serve as a “transitional” leader, as he said in 2020 — because the country is “so divided.”
“I said I was going to be a transitional candidate, and I thought I would be able to move on from this and pass it on to somebody else,” he said. “But I didn’t anticipate things getting so, so, so divided. And quite frankly, I think the only thing age brings is a little bit of wisdom.”
Several Democrats facing reelection headwinds have called for Biden to pass on the nomination. During a Zoom call on Saturday, the president allegedly “got nasty” and “tense” while speaking with dozens of moderate Democratic lawmakers who told him to step aside, writes The Daily Beast, and he even went so far as to challenge the courage of a military veteran.
“Among them was Rep. Jason Crow (D-CO), a former Army Ranger who served three tours in the Middle East, who found himself on the brunt end of a personal attack from Biden after he asked about the importance of national security to voters in November, Puck reported.
‘First of all, I think you’re dead wrong on national security‘ the president said to Crow. ‘You saw what happened recently in terms of the meeting we had with NATO. I put NATO together. Name me a foreign leader who thinks I’m not the most effective leader in the world on foreign policy. Tell me! Tell me who the hell that is!’
Biden’s response then got personal with Crow. ‘Tell me something you’ve never done with your Bronze Star like my son,’ Biden said.”
The president has been called out multiple times for using his dead son as a crutch, but the shooting of Donald Trump may have saved Biden from a major embarrassment—at least this week.
“Had the assassination attempt not occurred an hour later, I imagine 50 people on that Zoom were ready to come out publicly against him,” the congressional Democrat told Puck News.
The members of Congress aren’t alone. The Associated Press reported Tuesday that a new, devastating poll for Biden states that nearly two-thirds of Democrats want the president to withdraw.
“The new survey by the AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, conducted as Biden works to salvage his candidacy two weeks after his debate flop, also found that only about 3 in 10 Democrats are extremely or very confident that he has the mental capability to serve effectively as president, down slightly from 40% in an AP-NORC poll in February.
The findings underscore the challenges the 81-year-old president faces as he tries to silence calls from within his own party to leave the race and tries to convince Democrats that he’s the best candidate to defeat Donald Trump. The poll was conducted mostly before Saturday’s assassination attempt on Trump at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania. It’s unclear whether the shooting influenced people’s views of Biden, but the small number of poll interviews completed after the shooting provided no early indication that his prospects improved.”
With eyes turning to Kamala, however, things are not significantly better is the vice president gets the nod for the top job. “Vice President Kamala Harris receives additional scrutiny amid the talk about whether Biden should bow out, the poll found that her favorability rating is similar to his — but the share of Americans who have an unfavorable opinion of her is slightly lower.”
[Read More: Biden Tries To Pull A Fast One On Dems]
