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Bloomberg

Joe Biden can’t catch a break.
Hot on the heels of his Covid diagnosis, American news outlets are now reporting that his ex-boss Barack Obama recently told allies that the US president’s path to re-election has greatly diminished.
Obama thinks Biden needs to seriously consider the viability of his candidacy, The Washington Post reported on Thursday, citing multiple people briefed on the ex-US president’s thinking.
Associated Press also reported that Obama privately expressed concerns to Democrats about Biden’s candidacy.

The news comes as the latest blow for the president after he was diagnosed on Wednesday with Covid-19, dashing his hopes of counter-programming the Republican National Convention by forcing him to cancel an appearance before a key Latino advocacy group.
Then, the dam broke. A flood of leaks detailed senior leaders in the Democratic Party warning Biden personally that he was unlikely to defeat Donald Trump and was putting his congressional allies at great risk.
US Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer delivered a blunt assessment to Biden that it would be better if he bowed out of the race, ABC News reported. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries told the president his candidacy was imperilling Democrats’ hopes of holding on to control of either chamber of Congress, The Washington Post said. And former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told Biden in a private conversation he couldn’t defeat Trump, according to CNN.
Those private implorations were met by public signals Democrats remain unconvinced that Biden’s campaign is viable. Earlier on Wednesday, Adam Schiff – the California congressman and Democratic candidate in that state’s US Senate race – restarted the drumbeat of allies calling for Biden to exit the race, urging him to “pass the torch”.
Separately, Schumer and Jeffries worked to end-run a bid by some Biden allies to hold an early virtual roll-call. Had the effort succeeded, Biden could have formalised his nomination in the coming days, helping to quell the uprising.
Instead, the president retreated to isolate at his home in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, searching alone for how to right a campaign plunged again into chaos.
At the White House, spokesman Andrew Bates insisted that Biden was full steam ahead.
Biden told the congressional leaders “he is the nominee of the party, he plans to win, and looks forward to working with both of them to pass his 100 days agenda to help working families”, Bates said in a statement.

But the president’s Covid episode removes him from the campaign trail and thrusts his health back into the spotlight – all at a critical moment when he is trying desperately to prove that concerns over his age and mental acuity are overblown.
And Biden stoked the melodrama even more by suggesting in a BET interview taped on Tuesday that he would consider dropping out of the race if new health issues emerged – and that he’d be open to passing the baton to Vice-President Kamala Harris if new medical conditions emerged during a second term.
Even Biden’s allies were struggling to defend the president. Senator Bernie Sanders, among a group of progressives who have rallied to Biden’s defence in recent days, conceded in an interview with the New Yorker that Biden had trouble completing sentences.
Even worse, Biden’s struggles played out against scenes from the Republican Party convention, where the Republican nominee Trump appeared on stage for a walk-through sporting a bandaged ear from the assassination attempt he survived last weekend.
Trump’s defiant, fist-pumping response to the shooting proved instantly iconic, galvanising supporters against voices of doubt within the Republican Party. On Tuesday night, former primary foes Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis took to the stage in Milwaukee to lay out their argument for supporting Trump’s candidacy.
The events contributed to a growing sense of two campaigns headed in opposite directions: one on the rise and the other in turmoil.
Public opinion polls underscore the reason for Democrats to be concerned.
Nearly two-thirds of Biden’s own party say he should withdraw from the race, according to an Associated Press-NORC poll released hours before Biden’s Covid diagnosis. Just three in 10 Democrats are extremely or very confident in his ability to serve effectively as president.
Early on Wednesday, Emerson College released a poll that showed Trump ahead of Biden by 2 percentage points in Virginia, a state that hasn’t backed a Republican presidential candidate in 20 years. The split was within the survey’s margin of error, but suggests that Democrats may have to play defence – and spend money in – more states than previously thought.


Off the rails
Biden had hoped to reverse those perceptions over a three-day trip that quickly flew off the rails.
The president originally planned to travel on Monday to Austin, Texas, to deliver remarks marking the 60th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act at the Lyndon Baines Johnson Presidential Library. The White House had seen the address as an opportunity for Biden to link himself to previous Democratic efforts to expand protections for minorities, while painting Trump as enabling new restrictions on abortion and voting rights.
But that event was scrapped in the aftermath of Saturday’s shooting at the Trump rally, and a planned interview with NBC News was moved to the White House. Without the event as a backdrop, the interview devolved into a tense and combative exchange focused largely on Biden’s rhetoric and questions over his age.
“Sometime, come and talk to me about what we should be talking about,” Biden told NBC anchor Lester Holt at the conclusion. “OK? The issues.”
Biden resumed campaign events on Tuesday with an appearance at the NAACP’s national convention, but quickly bungled the centrepiece of his speech: a new proposal to cap rent increases by corporate landlords at 5 per cent annually.
Instead, Biden appeared to struggle to read his teleprompter, eventually saying the limit would be US$55.

Medical condition
After the event, BET News released excerpts from an interview with Biden, where he appeared to open the door to reconsidering his re-election bid if doctors advised it.
“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.
On Wednesday, things didn’t improve. Biden held a call with Jeffrey Katzenberg, the Hollywood executive leading his fundraising effort, and was told that donations were drying up over concerns about his age, Semafor reported. Katzenberg subsequently issued a statement to the outlet, calling it a “misread of a private meeting”.
The president then went to tape a radio interview with Univision but left it feeling unwell. A Covid test confirmed his infection, and the president quickly returned to the Las Vegas airport to fly back to his Delaware home.
About the only positive news for the president was that his symptoms were mild, according to the White House: a runny nose, cough, and – appropriately enough – “general malaise”.
Additional reporting by Reuters and Associated Press


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Joe Biden

Barack Obama tells allies Joe Biden needs to reconsider his re-election bid, US reports say

Calls for President Joe Biden to withdraw for the US election could intensify following his recent case of Covid. Photo: AFP

Former US president Barack Obama speaks in Athens, Greece, in June 2023. Photo: AP

President Joe Biden waves as he walks down the steps of Air Force One at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware on Wednesday. Biden is returning home to self-isolate after testing positive for Covid-19. Photo: AP

Joe Biden clears his throat as he speaks at an event in Las Vegas, Nevada on July 16. Photo: AFP

Joe Biden tests positive for Covid-19, scraps Las Vegas event

US President Joe Biden speaks at an event in Las Vegas on Tuesday. Photo: AFP

US President Joe Biden boards Air Force One at Harry Reid international airport in Las Vegas on Wednesday. Photo: Reuters

US President Joe Biden and Maritza Rodriguez, Biden for President Latina adviser, greets patrons at Linda Michoacan Mexican Restaurant during a stop in Las Vegas on Wednesday. Photo: AP

Biden walks down the steps of Air Force One at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware on Wednesday night. Photo: AP

Top Democrats Chuck Schumer, Nancy Pelosi pressure Joe Biden to drop out of 2024 race

US Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, 73, speaks to the media after a meeting at the White House in January. Photo: Bloomberg

US Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, 84, has reportedly told Biden polling shows he cannot defeat Trump. Photo: AFP

US congressman Adam Schiff, 64, speaks to the press in Washington in January. Photo: AFP

Two-thirds of Democrats want Biden to withdraw from US presidential election, poll finds

An increasing number of Democrats want Joe Biden to withdraw from the US Presidential election. Photo: AP

US President Joe Biden speaks from the Roosevelt Room of the White House as Vice-President Kamala Harris looks on in Washington on Sunday, one day after former president Donald Trump survived an apparent assassination attempt. Photo: TNS

Calls for Joe Biden to withdraw from the US Presidential race are growing stronger. Photo: TNS

What 4 things could make Joe Biden drop out of the White House race?

US President Joe Biden waves to journalists before boarding Air Force One at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland on Monday. Photo: Reuters

US Vice-President Kamala Harris listens as US President Joe Biden speaks at the White House on Sunday. Photo: Bloomberg

US President Joe Biden walks at the White House with his doctor Kevin O’Connor in August 2023. Photo: AP

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World

United States & Canada

Top Democrats are upping the pressure on the US president to step aside, as a Covid episode hampers his ability to campaign against Trump


Top Democrats are upping the pressure on the US president to step aside, as a Covid episode hampers his ability to campaign against Trump.
