U.S. Sen. Angus King of Maine was concerned by President Joe Biden’s poor debate performance, but he stopped short of joining a growing number of calls for the president to give up his 2024 run against former President Donald Trump.
The 81-year-old Biden made it through a 22-minute interview with ABC News Friday without major blunders that would inflict further damage to his imperiled candidacy. But it appeared unlikely to fully tamp down concerns about his age and fitness for another four years and his ability to defeat Donald Trump in November.
The statement from King, an 80-year-old independent who caucuses with Democrats and would be Maine’s oldest-ever senator if he wins a third term in November, was his first public one on Biden’s situation. Five Democratic members of the House have called on Biden to exit the campaign, while Rep. Jared Golden of Maine’s 2nd District has said Trump will win.
Most elected Democrats are still officially behind Biden, including in Maine, where Gov. Janet Mills and the state party have affirmed their support for him. Behind the scenes, many donors and operatives here are pessimistic about his prospects. In the coming week, the calls from Democrats in Washington are expected to grow louder.
In a Saturday statement, King spokesperson Matthew Felling said the senator was “concerned” by Biden’s debate performance and thinks the president “should take every opportunity in the coming days to establish his capacity to continue the campaign and the job of the presidency through unscripted interviews and direct interactions with voters.”
“It is only through such a public process that he can demonstrate that [last] Thursday was simply an off night and that his past ability to define the issues and seek common sense solutions remains undiminished,” Felling said.
King didn’t go as far as some other officials generally aligned with Biden. Sen. Mark Warner, D-Virginia, reached fellow senators throughout this week to discuss whether to ask Biden to exit the race, according to three people familiar with the effort who requested anonymity to talk about private conversations.
The Virginia Democrat’s moves are notable given his chairmanship of the Senate Intelligence Committee — which King also sits on — and his reputation as a lawmaker who is supportive of Biden and has working relationships with colleagues in both parties. Warner’s effort was first reported by The Washington Post.
The strategy remains fluid. One of the people with knowledge of Warner’s effort said there are enough Senate Democrats concerned enough about Biden’s capacity to run for reelection to take some sort of action, although there was yet no consensus on what that plan would be. Some of the Democratic senators could meet as soon as Monday on how to move forward.
The top Democrats on House committees are planning to meet virtually Sunday to discuss the situation, according to a person familiar with the gathering granted anonymity to talk about it.
In the ABC interview, George Stephanopoulos asked Biden how he might be persuaded to leave the race. He laughed and replied, “If the Lord Almighty comes down and tells me that, I might do that.”
The interview left Biden in a standoff against a not-insignificant faction of his party with four months to go until Election Day, and with just weeks until the Democratic National Convention. The drawn-out spectacle could benefit Biden’s efforts to remain in the race by limiting the party’s options to replace him. But it also could be a distraction from vital efforts to frame the 2024 race as a high-stakes referendum on Trump.
“It’s President Biden’s decision whether or not he remains in the race. Voters select our nominee and they chose him,” said California Rep. Ro Khanna, a member of the Biden campaign’s national advisory board that works as a gathering of his top surrogates. “Now, he needs to prove to those voters that he is up to the job and that will require more than just this one interview.”
One Democrat who watched said they found Biden to be still shaky under controlled conditions and predicted more will call on him to leave the race.
Story by Colleen Long and Seung Min Kim. BDN writer Michael Shepherd contributed to this report.
