Thursday Briefing: Pressure Mounts for Biden to Step Aside

Nancy Pelosi, the congresswoman and former speaker of the House.Credit…Haiyun Jiang for The New York Times

Calls grow for Biden to drop out

President Biden faced a fresh wave of pressure yesterday to step aside as Democrats aired concerns that he would lose to Donald Trump in November.

Nancy Pelosi, congresswoman and former speaker of the House, gave the strongest public signal yet that Democrats were divided over Biden’s candidacy. On a news show, she said that “time is running short” for him to reconsider, adding that she would back him “whatever he decides.”

Explicit calls for Biden to withdraw increased. Representative Pat Ryan of New York, one of the most vulnerable Democratic incumbents, called on Biden to drop out “for the good of the country.” He was the eighth House Democrat to do so publicly.

George Clooney, who hosted a $28 million fund-raiser last month for the president, also pleaded with him to step aside in a New York Times opinion essay, adding that he had seen Biden’s decline up close.

Biden has tried to silence his doubters by criticizing the Democratic “elites” who he portrays as having turned on him, my colleague Peter Baker writes. Biden may also be hoping to run out the clock until his nomination at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago next month.

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