The House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries said he shared lawmakers’ “insight, heartfelt perspectives and conclusions about the path forward” in a private meeting with Joe Biden yesterday.

The meeting came after more than a dozen House Democrats publicly called on the president to end his bid for re-election after his stumbling performance against Donald Trump in their first debate.

Jeffries had promised that he would talk to Biden after speaking with all of the 213 Democrats in the House of Representatives, and, in a letter to lawmakers today, he indicated that he has done so, without elaborating on Biden’s response.

Deep-pocketed Democratic donors are putting multimillion-dollar pledges on hold and saying they won’t hand over the money until Joe Biden abandons his re-election campaign, the New York Times reports.

Others are holding off on giving any more money to Future Forward, the largest Super Pac supporting the president’s campaign.

  • nondescripthandle@lemmy.dbzer0.com
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    63
    arrow-down
    9
    ·
    edit-2
    4 months ago

    Can people stop pretending like this movement is just a media manufactured story now? The refusal to look at the whole picture is astonishing.

    • oxjox@lemmy.ml
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      51
      arrow-down
      26
      ·
      4 months ago

      Thank you. In fact, polls have shown that, after the debate, there was little to no change in support among voters. I’m not entirely sure what’s going on here.

      Frankly, aside from his weak position on Israel, my support for Biden has grown significantly in recent months. He was absolutely right yesterday - if his job performance were weak, he’d have reason to consider dropping out. He’s very likely the best world leader in recent times.

      No president is going to be perfect - ever. I’ll take a shitty debate performance and gaffes and all in exchange for what the guy has done and will do for this country.

      • PugJesus@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        50
        arrow-down
        6
        ·
        4 months ago

        It’s not about Biden’s track record. It’s about his ability going forward to run a very taxing campaign against a literal fascist while also performing the duties of the presidency.

        And the likely answer to that is “Not nearly as energetically as he needs to for me to not be playing Russian roulette the night of election day”.

        • tacosplease@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          14
          arrow-down
          21
          ·
          4 months ago

          Why would he not perform his job as well as he has for the past couple years? How does a bad debate performance tell us more about his ability as President than his performance… being the current President?

          People talk about getting rid of Biden as if it wouldn’t be a huge risk to declare a new candidate at this point in the race. This has happened before, and the party that switched candidates lost the presidency.

          And why isn’t anyone calling for Trump to step down? He’s rambled and lost track far worse than Biden has yet we don’t see the same calls for him to leave the race.

          People are talking about Biden’s stamina. Meanwhile he’s done over a dozen appearances since the debate while Trump has done zero.

          This is why we lose. Republican voters show up and vote regardless of what they think about the candidate. There’s a lot at stake here, and Democrats refuse to accept the lesser evil because it’s not a perfect solution.

          We should be talking project 2025 instead of Joe Biden’s brain farts.

          • PugJesus@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            25
            arrow-down
            7
            ·
            4 months ago

            Why would he not perform his job as well as he has for the past couple years?

            Man, if you don’t understand how aging works, I can’t help you.

            • tacosplease@lemmy.world
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              5
              arrow-down
              16
              ·
              4 months ago

              You’re missing the point. If he has dementia then his Presidential performance would show it.

              So he either performed well as a President with dementia.

              Or he is developing a new, extremely aggressive case of dementia that has been building just for the past couple months.

              Well there is one more option that makes more sense to me. He doesn’t have dementia, is still a good President, and just had a bad debate.

              But maybe I really don’t understand aging. Guess we’ll know by whether he is drooling and shitting his pants in the next few weeks as the “aggressive dementia” either does or does not manifest.

              • PugJesus@lemmy.world
                link
                fedilink
                English
                arrow-up
                16
                arrow-down
                6
                ·
                4 months ago

                Or he is developing a new, extremely aggressive case of dementia that has been building just for the past couple months.

                That is exactly how mental decline works when you’re older. You have very fast dips in ability. Regardless, he has lost the confidence of his party.

      • FuglyDuck@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        7
        arrow-down
        2
        ·
        4 months ago

        Because Biden only started taxing them a month ago… he didn’t campaign at all on that back in 2020, and it’s such a total surprise to them!

        /s do you really think that if this was a planned ouster it would be this… unsubtle?

        If you think Biden can’t lose… I got a bridge to sell you.

  • SeaJ@lemm.ee
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    48
    ·
    4 months ago

    Honestly, donors pulling money is the only way Biden will drop out.

    • gAlienLifeform@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      42
      arrow-down
      9
      ·
      4 months ago

      It might just turn me into a Biden supporter*, I hate how much influence rich fucks have on our politics

      *I was/am going to vote for him or whoever the Democratic nominee is anyway, but I have always thought Joe Biden was a racist-rehabilitating credit card company loving piece of crap and take every opportunity I can to point out that I think the Democratic party needs to do way better than this, but the whole reason we got stuck with President Biden in the first place is because of big money donors like this who think they know better than everyone else

      • goferking0@lemmy.sdf.org
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        18
        arrow-down
        12
        ·
        4 months ago

        Wait the donors acknowledging they were dumb to stuck us with him is the reason you may turn into a supporter?

        Thats some logic

        • gAlienLifeform@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          12
          ·
          4 months ago

          What the donors and the party need to acknowledge is that letting donors rig our party in favor of their own preferences kills our voters’ enthusiasm and keeps them home. This shouldn’t be happening because Rob Reiner and George Clooney suddenly had a change of heart, if this was going to happen it should have happened months ago when Biden’s approval ratings were already in the toilet, or when the college student voters we need to be campaign volunteers were protesting Palestinian genocide, or any one of a dozen other moments.

  • PugJesus@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    41
    arrow-down
    8
    ·
    4 months ago

    He needs to step down. I fought this for a while, but he’s lost the confidence of his party, and you can’t come back from that. Not in a few short months. Any path forward for Biden from here will be a monumental struggle to get the support needed to beat Trump.

    • DominusOfMegadeus@sh.itjust.works
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      18
      arrow-down
      3
      ·
      edit-2
      4 months ago

      Who is the best replacement and how do we choose?

      EDIT: It was a collective “We,” people. As in, all of us who aren’t fascists. I’m well aware of how the democratic party chooses candidates.

      • PugJesus@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        29
        ·
        4 months ago

        Harris is the obvious choice, though I would be thrilled if it went to someone else. The DNC, unfortunately, will have to discuss amongst the delegates who will get the final nod. What’s important is that we have unity going forward - which is one of the reasons why it’s so important for Biden to step down and get onboard with this.

          • PugJesus@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            20
            ·
            4 months ago

            Yeah. Or rather, Biden shouldn’t have announced he was running for a second term, since as soon as he announced, any serious contenders cooled their ambitions. I understand that you don’t get into politics without a little bit of an ego problem, but it really fucked us.

        • ZombiFrancis@sh.itjust.works
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          8
          ·
          4 months ago

          He could full out resign, putting Harris in office and be able to appoint a new VP that inspires more confidence than Harris. Could satisfy party brass who want to control the appointment for getting Biden out.

          Or he could drop out of the race and endorse Harris at an open convention which would be more democratic.

          Hold a national primary over the next month.

          • polonius-rex@kbin.run
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            8
            ·
            4 months ago

            people want to replace biden because they don’t think he can win the election, not because they want harris as president

            why would biden saying “no totally trust me guys i’ll step down for harris after i’ve won” make him any more likely to win, especially after he already told the world he’d be a one-term president?

            • prole@sh.itjust.works
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              5
              ·
              4 months ago

              I think they were suggesting that he resign before the election, and Harris chooses a new VP

          • protist
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            8
            arrow-down
            2
            ·
            4 months ago

            The problem is the convention is happening after the ballot deadline in Ohio, which has historically been waived by the Ohio legislature for both parties, but which has not this year with Republicans in charge. That’s why there was going to get a virtual roll call before the convention to nominate Biden. There needs to be a nominee solidified and nominated before the convention or risk having no Democratic candidate for president on the Ohio ballot

          • TokenBoomer@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            3
            ·
            4 months ago

            That makes too much sense so it will never happen. My vote is for a “Thunderdome Convention.” And we all know Buttigieg would wipe the floor with his Gramsci quotes.

          • girlfreddy@lemmy.caOP
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            9
            ·
            4 months ago

            If the DNC doesn’t like Sanders - enough that they manipulated his defeat to Clinton - just how receptive do you think they are to AOC being their candidate?

        • protist
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          10
          arrow-down
          3
          ·
          edit-2
          4 months ago

          Harris is the only candidate who would be able to access all the money the Biden campaign has already. Anyone else would start from scratch

          • PugJesus@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            7
            ·
            4 months ago

            Which is why Harris needs to be onboard too. And, unfortunately, one of several reasons why she’s the most likely candidate.

            • Zaktor@sopuli.xyz
              link
              fedilink
              English
              arrow-up
              4
              ·
              4 months ago

              The issue is contribution limits and what it can be spent on. Harris in control of the money, but not a candidate, means $5k goes to the new candidate and the remaining hundreds of millions become an outside funding entity. That can’t pay for staff’s salaries or do other sorts of direct spending. It’s not an insurmountable hurdle, but it is a pretty meaningful concern. On the plus side, people’s donation limits would be reset.

          • ShepherdPie@midwest.social
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            2
            arrow-down
            1
            ·
            4 months ago

            She’s just as unlikable as Biden and Clinton. It would be pointless to switch to her when she doesn’t bring any enthusiasm from voters.

        • TokenBoomer@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          3
          ·
          4 months ago

          I’m subscribed to DNC donor lists and get texts 3, sometimes 4 times a day for donations. Lately, I’ve been getting surveys about Biden’s performance.

          Today, I got a survey asking if I would support Kamala Harris. The entire survey was about Harris. Not sure if that means anything, but it was unexpected. I said I would support her btw, she would enrage Trump.

        • CaptainKickass@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          5
          arrow-down
          6
          ·
          4 months ago

          Harris would lose. She has too much baggage, real.or imagined. And as much as I hate it, this country isn’t going to elect a black woman any time soon. 🤦🏽

          • polonius-rex@kbin.run
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            11
            arrow-down
            1
            ·
            4 months ago

            she has baggage for the left, but that the right would probably find it very difficult to attack

            “she went too hard on criminals” isn’t exactly something they can use to their advantage

            • bobs_monkey@lemm.ee
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              3
              arrow-down
              1
              ·
              4 months ago

              While I agree, the cold unfortunate reality is that a black woman is a nonstarter for a significant portion of the US population. Being a woman is a hurdle enough, being a black woman is a hell of a climb.

          • PugJesus@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            10
            ·
            4 months ago

            We elected a black man in 2008. A woman won the popular vote in 2016.

            I’m inclined to agree she has an uphill fight, and that I would much prefer other candidates - if we’re going to have an uphill battle, let’s at least have a charismatic candidate - but Biden is… not really viable at this point.

        • mozz@mbin.grits.dev
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          9
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          edit-2
          4 months ago

          So… I don’t disagree, and a contested convention (after Biden agreeing to release his delegates saying that he’d love to re-win the nomination but recognizes that the complaints are valid and wants what’s best for the Democrats as a whole) sounds like not a bad strategy.

          There’s one pretty chilling thing though: How difficult to do think it would be for a Russian influence operation, or a GOP one working with a few friendly players in local politics / law enforcement in Chicago, to create a giant violent shit show of cops assaulting protestors and creating the exact types of events that will overshadow anything good that comes out of the convention and turn off a whole bunch of left wing people, because they can’t tell the difference between the Chicago cops doing something and the Democratic Party doing that same thing, if it happens at the convention?

          I don’t think it would be difficult at all. And that’s before even adding in whatever any boogaloo people who want to show up might do.

          I think the DNC could easily be where the fighting in the streets fireworks that continue into November get started for real, and in a way that depresses Democratic voter turnout a lot more than the debate did.

          • girlfreddy@lemmy.caOP
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            5
            ·
            4 months ago

            How difficult to do think it would be for a Russian influence operation

            That is the biggest worry rn, esp after The Guardian just reported today there was massive “coordinated networks of accounts spreading disinformation (that) ‘flooded’ social media in France, Germany and Italy before the elections to the European parliament.”

            • mozz@mbin.grits.dev
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              3
              arrow-down
              2
              ·
              4 months ago

              Man I fuckin hope so. Their efforts on Lemmy are just kind of comical, but that’s because those are the 2-ruble-a-day clowns sitting in a big cube farm somewhere. The real pros are perfectly capable of cultivating an online friendship with some armed right-wing loons in or out of the CPD, and nudging things along very effectively in a terrifying direction, I think.

        • prole@sh.itjust.works
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          2
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          4 months ago

          The risks today aren’t what they were in 1968

          Are you saying there’s less risk now than 68? Because, if you weren’t aware, we are on the cusp of literally losing the Republic.

      • FattestMattest@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        3
        arrow-down
        6
        ·
        4 months ago

        Good or bad, no one is going to beat Trump except Biden. I’ll take the last 4 years we’ve had, where he’s had times that he seems out if it, but the country is doing a lot better and doesn’t seem like we are at each other’s throats. If he dies the day before election, I’ll vote for his corpse.

  • anticurrent@sh.itjust.works
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    18
    arrow-down
    2
    ·
    4 months ago

    People are really missing the point intentionally, it isn’t about Biden’s Ability to govern in the next presidential Term, but about his ability to convince the swing voters about that, and on that front he is failing, and keeps falling in polls after every public event, he is 6 points behind Trump in most swing States

    • theherk@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      4 months ago

      I think it is about both, candidly. Getting elected is priority one, but being able to effectively govern would be a pretty huge bonus, and that expectation is likely to influence voters.

  • mozz@mbin.grits.dev
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    15
    arrow-down
    2
    ·
    4 months ago

    I directly expressed the full breadth of insight, heartfelt perspectives and conclusions about the path forward

    You wanna share that path forward with the rest of us?

    To me, the issue is much more “what are we gonna do instead” than it is “naw man Biden totally isn’t old / it’s not a problem that he is”

    • crusa187@lemmy.ml
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      5
      ·
      4 months ago

      Now would be an excellent time to showcase organizational skills and leadership to propose a meaningful plan and execute it dutifully, exhibiting a capable governing party for all to see.

      Unfortunately, Jeffries’ big donor puppeteers haven’t thought that far ahead.