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      The Strongest Case for Biden Is His Resilience in the Face of the Onslaught

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      Joe Biden is still standing, refusing to bow out — he reiterated that once again in a lengthy and mostly successful news conference on Thursday night. Some may view it as selfish and irresponsible. Some may even see it as dangerous. But I see it as remarkable.Despite sending a clear message — in his recent flurry of interviews and rallies, in his stalwart address this week to members of the NATO alliance and in his letter on Monday to congressional Democrats, in which he assured them that “I wouldn’t be running again if I did not absolutely believe I was the best person to beat Donald Trump in 2024” — there’s still a slow drumbeat from luminaries, donors and elected officials trying to write Biden’s political obituary.The talent agency mogul Ari Emanuel (a brother of Rahm Emanuel, Biden’s ambassador to Japan), recently said Biden “is not the candidate anymore.” In a post on X, the best-selling author Stephen King said that it’s time for Biden “to announce he will not run for re-election.” Abigail Disney, an heiress to the Walt Disney fortune, said, “I intend to stop any contributions to the party unless and until they replace Biden at the top of the ticket.”They seem to believe that they can kill his candidacy, by a thousand cuts or by starving it to death.But none of this sits well with me.First, because Biden is, in fact, his party’s presumptive nominee. He won the primaries. He has the delegates. He got there via an open, organized and democratic process.Forcing him out, against his will, seems to me an invalidation of that process. And the apparent justification for this, that polls, which are highly fluctuant, now indicate that some voters want him replaced, is insufficient; responses to polls are not votes.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      James Carville’s Plan B for a Democratic Nominee

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      Readers discuss his idea for picking an alternative to President Biden and offer suggestions of their own.To the Editor:Re “Biden Won’t Win. Democrats Must Have a Plan. Here’s One,” by James Carville (Opinion guest essay, July 11):Mr. Carville has given us a good option for the Democratic Party presidential selection process, with former Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama selecting eight potential candidates and then hosting four regional “auditions.” A refinement: At the convention in Chicago, winnow the field like the N.C.A.A.’s March Madness championship process.Using the Elite Eight, the Final Four and then the championship game format, in three nights of the convention have votes to lop off first the bottom four, then the bottom two, and then the last two would be voted on. The winner would emerge as a consensus choice; the runner-up could be offered the veep position. Talk about riveting TV!Lamont WiltseeCarmel Valley, Calif.To the Editor:James Carville makes one structural mistake in his piece calling for four town halls around the country. President Biden should be invited to be one of the participants and compete on an even footing with the other candidates. Let Mr. Biden keep running, but make him prove he’s the one.Keith LiggettSilverton, British ColumbiaTo the Editor:James Carville has been a stalwart for Democrats, so it is sad to see him jumping ship just when the best president since Franklin D. Roosevelt needs his support most. His proposed nominee plan is a waste of campaign time better used to hammer away at the defects and danger of a Donald Trump presidency.History shows that voters returned Roosevelt to a fourth term to continue the war effort despite known health issues. The battle to save democracy is on the ballot, and President Biden is the proven commander. So, James, get back in the boat and row in unison.Richard SigalNew YorkTo the Editor:James Carville’s plan for a post-Biden Democratic campaign gave me hope for the first time since the disastrous debate. Those who suggest that Kamala Harris must be President Biden’s replacement ignore her low poll numbers, voters’ unfamiliarity with her and a sense that she hasn’t done anything as vice president. Mr. Carville’s plan would give all of us a chance to get to know her better as well as to explore the broader Democratic bench.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Peter Welch Is the First Democratic Senator to Call on Biden to Drop Out

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      Senator Peter Welch of Vermont on Wednesday became the first Democratic senator to publicly call on President Biden to withdraw as the party’s presidential candidate in the aftermath of his disastrous debate performance last month.“We can’t unsee what we saw,” Mr. Welch said in an interview shortly after publishing an op-ed in The Washington Post in which he called for Mr. Biden to end his campaign and allow another Democrat to take on former President Donald J. Trump. He said the president’s stumbles during the debate had only reinforced — rather than allayed — concerns about his ability to run a successful campaign.“Age was a big issue going into the debate, and it was an opportunity, obviously, that the White House saw to put that to rest, and coming out of the debate, it intensified it,” the first-term senator said. “And that’s a real problem.”Mr. Welch, 77, said his decision to call on the president to step aside was extremely difficult because he and voters in his home state “love Joe Biden.” He touted the 2020 election results, in which Vermonters delivered Mr. Biden the highest percentage victory of any state in the country.But he said those same voters had deep anxieties about the future, fearing that four years under a second Trump administration would remove any chance of extending progressive policies championed by Mr. Biden and could wipe away the progress they have supported over the last four years.Mr. Welch said it had become an existential issue for him to consider the threat of another Trump presidency, and that his determination was that Mr. Biden was not up to beating the former president.“It’s not the elites in Vermont who are talking to me,” Mr. Welch said, brushing back an argument that Mr. Biden has made in recent days as he has defiantly refused to leave the race. “It’s the working-class mother who’s got two kids and is hoping maybe we can get the child care tax back. It’s kids who are working in AmeriCorps just to do cleanup and environmental work who are terrified that all the achievements of the Biden administration on the environment are going to be erased if we get a Trump presidency.”“It’s a catastrophe,” he added.The senator said he is not blind to the risks that could come should Mr. Biden step down, but rejected comparisons to the meltdown Democrats faced in 1968, when chaos and violence at the party convention in Chicago contributed to then-Vice President Hubert Humphrey’s loss in the general election that November.“One of the achievements of Joe Biden is that he has unified the Democratic Party — everyone from Bernie Sanders to Joe Manchin,” Mr. Welch said. “And what that means is that if we have to go through ‘Who’s our next candidate?,’ it’s going to be among people who are all committed to the Biden commitment to save democracy, the Biden commitment to the environment, the Biden commitment to women’s rights.” More

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      Pelosi Suggests That Biden Should Reconsider Decision to Stay in the Race

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      Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, the former speaker, suggested on Wednesday that President Biden should reconsider his decision to remain in the presidential race, the strongest public push yet from a senior member of his party for him to weigh dropping out.Despite mounting concerns that his candidacy could cost Democrats not only the White House but both chambers of Congress, Mr. Biden has been unequivocal about his intention to seek a second term, telling members of Congress in a letter on Monday that his mind is made up and “I’m firmly committed to staying in this race.” On Wednesday, Ms. Pelosi said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” that the president should continue to weigh his options.“It’s up to the president to decide if he is going to run,” she said. “We’re all encouraging him to to make that decision. Because time is running short.”When pressed on whether she wanted him to seek re-election, Ms. Pelosi said: “I want him to do whatever he decides to do. And that’s the way it is. Whatever he decides, we go with.”Ms. Pelosi said she wanted to delay the conversations about Mr. Biden’s future until after the NATO summit he is hosting this week in Washington, which on Thursday will include the president’s first news conference since his disastrous debate performance that raised questions about his mental acuity and fitness to remain in the race.“Let’s just hold off,” she said. “Whatever you’re thinking, either tell somebody privately, but you don’t have to put that out on the table until we see how we go this week.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Biden, on Call With Mayors, Works to Shore Up Democratic Support

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      President Biden held a video call with nearly 200 Democratic mayors on Tuesday night, reiterating that he was staying in the presidential race, reminding the city leaders how best to support his campaign and discussing his second-term agenda.Mr. Biden, his campaign and the White House have been working to dismiss and defuse Democratic criticisms about his viability after his poor debate showing. Those efforts included a gathering of Democratic governors last week at the White House, a television interview with ABC News two days later and calls on Monday to top donors, congressional leaders and a meeting of the Congressional Black Caucus.The call with mayors lasted about 40 minutes and Mr. Biden took three questions, according to Mayor Cory Mason of Racine, Wis., a Democrat who participated in the call and provided details about how it went — as did five other mayors who insisted on anonymity to freely discuss the conversation. Mr. Mason described Mr. Biden as “the president that everybody’s used to seeing” and not the one who delivered a halting debate performance nearly two weeks ago.“It was understandable for a time for people to ask if everything is OK,” Mr. Mason said. “It’s four months out from the election, so you can’t have too many of those days, but every day that passes, he’s proving he can recover from a bad debate performance.”The mayors described the call as a somewhat scripted pep rally, with Mr. Biden speaking for about 20 minutes and then taking questions from mayors selected by the moderator, Mayor Kate Gallego of Phoenix.Like many video calls arranged by the Biden campaign and the White House, participants could not see who else was on the call or add comments into the chat screen. They could indicate their feelings about what was being said by adding emojis, and many contributed smiley-face ones as Mr. Biden spoke, according to Mr. Mason.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      On Capitol Hill, Democrats Panic About Biden but Do Nothing

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      The president has yet to do what many Democrats said he must to show he is up to remaining in the race. But so far, they have thrown up their hands, doing nothing to nudge him aside.Senator Christopher S. Murphy, an ambitious young Democrat from Connecticut, went on television on Sunday with a carefully worded warning to President Biden about the viability of his campaign.“This week is going to be absolutely critical; I think the president needs to do more,” Mr. Murphy said, arguing that Mr. Biden needed to hold a town hall and participate in unscripted events because “the clock is ticking” for him to put to rest the doubts about his candidacy raised by a disastrous debate performance. Multiple times, Mr. Murphy emphasized his deadline, saying that he, as well as voters, must see more action “this week.”Senator Michael Bennet, the Colorado Democrat who briefly ran for president himself, said Mr. Biden had to “reassure the American people that he can run a vigorous campaign to defeat Donald Trump.”Senator Patty Murray of Washington, a senior member of the Democratic leadership team, put out a statement that passed for fighting words, saying that the president “must do more to demonstrate that he can campaign strong enough to beat Donald Trump.”So far, Mr. Biden has done none of that.And yet, Democrats on Capitol Hill are stifling their doubts and falling in line behind him anyway.Having spent the last week and a half in various stages of private panic and public skepticism about Mr. Biden’s viability as a candidate and whispering among themselves about what the best way to push him aside might be — a strongly worded letter? a White House meeting? a high-level intervention? — top Democrats on Tuesday settled on a strategy many of them conceded could be disastrous: They would do nothing, at least for now.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Biden no ganará. Los demócratas necesitan un plan. Aquí hay uno

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      Recuerden mis palabras: Joe Biden estará fuera de la contienda presidencial de 2024. Esté o no dispuesto a admitirlo. Su petición a los demócratas del Congreso para que lo respalden no unirán al partido en su apoyo. Biden dice que seguirá en la carrera, pero solo es cuestión de tiempo para que la presión demócrata y los sondeos públicos y privados lo lleven a abandonarla. Se acabó el juego, y cuanto antes lo acepten Biden y los líderes de su partido, mejor. Tenemos que avanzar.Pero no puede ser eligiendo a la vicepresidenta Kamala Harris o a cualquier otra persona como posible candidato demócrata. Tenemos que hacerlo de manera abierta; exactamente del modo contrario a como Donald Trump quiere que hagamos.Por primera vez en su vida, Trump está rezando. Para ganar la Casa Blanca y aumentar sus posibilidades de evitar usar un uniforme naranja, necesita que los demócratas sigan los pasos equivocados en los próximos días: es decir, que parezcan amañar la nominación de un presidente en decadencia o de la vicepresidenta en ejercicio o de algún otro aparente heredero. Trump necesita poder escribir en MAYÚSCULAS publicaciones en redes sociales sobre los agentes del poder y los grandes donantes que lo arreglan todo. Necesita, en otras palabras, que los demócratas acaben por echarlo todo a perder.No vamos a hacer eso.Vamos a nominar una nueva candidatura de forma muy democrática y novedosa, no en las trastiendas de Washington, D. C., o Chicago.Estamos en un momento en el que necesitamos ideas constructivas sobre cómo avanzar. El representante Jim Clyburn y el columnista de Opinión del Times Ezra Klein han hablado de unas miniprimarias demócratas, y a mí me gustaría desarrollar esa idea.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      ‘Pass the Torch’ Sign at Biden Rally Costs Volunteer Role in State Campaign

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      Clint Keaveny took his place in the stands behind President Biden at a rally on Friday in Madison, Wis., and held up a sign that read, “Pass the torch, Joe.” Before the rally was over, Mr. Keaveny had lost his role with a Democratic congressional campaign.The event was the first in Mr. Biden’s weekend blitz of campaign events in must-win states to rebuff critics after his halting debate performance on June 27. As the president took the stage, in full view of cameras, Mr. Keaveny unveiled his poster, made of taped-together printer paper and stuffed in his waistband. It had been written by Mr. Keaveny’s mother, he said.The moment quickly went viral. His boss noticed.Before Mr. Keaveny had even left the event, Kristin Lyerly, the Wisconsin congressional candidate for whom he was a communications volunteer, had seen the images circulating online. She called him and asked that he part ways with the campaign, to which he agreed.“He held up a sign that was inconsistent with the values and the ideals of our campaign,” Dr. Lyerly said in an interview. “I was just so profoundly disappointed that I called him right then and there.” Mr. Keaveny, 27, said that Mr. Biden has been a great president, but he does not believe that he can defeat former President Donald J. Trump in November.“It pains me to feel like a black sheep,” Mr. Keaveny said. “But I believe in following my conscience.”The episode with Mr. Keaveny comes as questions over loyalty to President Biden in the Democratic Party are breaking out into the open and some are calling for a new nominee. Mr. Biden has repeatedly pledged to stay the course.Dr. Lyerly is running for a vacant seat that represents a swath of northeast Wisconsin, including Green Bay, a competitive district that leans Republican. Representative Mike Gallagher, a Republican, resigned from the seat in April. More