President Joe Biden is tripling down on his seeming commitment to stay in the race, lashing out at members of his own party for questioning whether he has what it takes to defeat former President Donald Trump in November.
The 81-year-old’s resistance to calls to step aside puts some ranking House Democrats in a tough spot following a call they had with House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) on Sunday, during which a majority expressed their desire to see Biden drop out of the race and allow Vice President Kamala Harris to run as the party’s presidential candidate, as previously relayed by The Dallas Express.
“I wouldn’t be running if I didn’t absolutely believe that I am the best candidate to beat Donald Trump in 2024,” Biden said Monday morning on MSNBC’s Morning Joe. “We had a democratic nominating process where the voters spoke clearly. I won 14 million of those votes.”
Here’s some of what Fox News reported on the president’s unwillingness to heed calls from Democrats to get out of the way:
President Biden is urging congressional Democrats to stop questioning whether he should end his re-election bid and “move forward as a unified party” in order to defeat former President Trump in their 2024 election rematch.
And the president, in a letter sent to congressional Democrats on Monday as they return from the July 4th holiday recess, reiterated that he’s “firmly committed to staying in this race” and argued that any further questioning of his candidacy “only helps Trump and hurts us.”
Following his extremely rough debate performance a week and a half ago in his first face-to-face showdown with Trump, the president has been attempting to prove that he still has the stamina and acuity to handle the toughest and most demanding job in the world. And he’s trying to prove that he has the fortitude to defeat Trump.