WASHINGTON (AP) — Despite a week of campaign stops, interviews and insistence that he is the best candidate to take on Republican Donald Trump, President Joe Biden has not eased off pressure to drop out of the 2024 race.
WATCH: Pressure mounts on Biden to step down as more Democrats call on him to end his campaign
Biden faces some tough options this weekend that could define the direction of the country and his party as the nation heads into November elections with a GOP energized after the Republican nominating convention to return Trump to the White House.
Democratic Rep. Mark Takano, the top member of the House Veterans Affairs Committee, added his name Saturday to the list of nearly three dozen Democrats in Congress who believe it is time for Biden to leave the race. The Californian called on Biden to “pass the torch” to Vice President Kamala Harris.
Harris, meanwhile, has received support from Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who told MSNBC Saturday that the vice president is “ready to step up” to unite the party and confront Trump if Biden decides to step down. Warren said knowing that “gives me a lot of hope right now.”
Other lawmakers are expected to speak in the coming days. Donors have expressed concerns. And an organization calling on Biden to “pass the torch” has planned a rally outside the White House on Saturday. Biden has insisted he is all in on the issue.
“There’s no joy in acknowledging that he shouldn’t be our nominee in November,” said Democratic Rep. Morgan McGarvey of Kentucky, one of the Democrats who has called for Biden to drop out of the race. “But the stakes in this election are too high, and we can’t risk the focus of the campaign being anything other than Donald Trump.”
The impasse has become increasingly untenable for the party and its leaders, a month before the Democratic National Convention, which should be a unifying moment to choose their incumbent president to take on Trump. Instead, the party finds itself at a crossroads unlike any it has been in generations.
This creates a striking juxtaposition with Republicans who, after years of bitter and chaotic infighting over Trump, have essentially embraced the former president’s far-right takeover of the GOP, despite his criminal conviction in a bribery case and his pending federal criminal indictment for trying to overturn the 2020 election before the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.
WATCH: Brooks and Capehart on Trump’s Familiar Message and the Pressure on Biden to End His Candidacy
From his beach house in Delaware, Biden, 81, is isolating himself after announcing a Covid infection, but also politically with a small circle of family and close advisers. White House physician Kevin O’Connor said Saturday that the president’s symptoms were improving, but he still suffered from a dry cough and hoarseness.
The president’s team insisted he was ready to resume campaigning next week to counter what he called a “dark vision” presented by Trump.
“Together, as a party and as a country, we can and will defeat him at the ballot box,” Biden said in a statement Friday. “The stakes are high and the choice is clear. Together, we will win.”
But outside the Rehoboth enclave, debate and passions are intensifying.
A phone call with some 300 donors on Friday was described as a waste of time by one participant, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the private conversation. While the person offered compliments to Harris, who spoke for five minutes, the rest of the time was taken up by others who brushed aside donor concerns, the participant said.
Democrats are not only divided over what Biden should do, they also lack consensus on how to choose a successor.
Democrats pushing for Biden’s ouster don’t appear to have agreed on a plan for what happens next, yet. Very few lawmakers have mentioned Harris in their statements, and some have said they favor an open nomination process that would allow the party to support a new candidate.
Democratic Sens. Jon Tester of Montana and Peter Welch of Vermont have both called on Biden to withdraw from the race and said they would support an open nominating process at the convention.
“Having the ballot open would strengthen who the final candidate is,” Welch said in an interview with The Associated Press.
Some House Democrats have agreed to an open nomination process.
A person familiar with the thinking of Nancy Pelosi, the House speaker emeritus, said that while she is a friend and admirer of the vice president, she believes that anyone who wants to become speaker would be better served by such a process, believing that the candidate who emerges as the nominee at the convention would be stronger to win the election. The person spoke on condition of anonymity to describe Pelosi’s thought process.
Rep. Zoe Lofgren of California, a Pelosi ally who on Friday called for Biden to step down, said on MSNBC Friday that some sort of “mini-primary” that would include Harris made sense.
Other Democrats say it would be politically unthinkable to overtake Harris, the nation’s first female vice president who is Black and of South Asian descent, and logistically impractical with a virtual nominating vote scheduled for early next month, before the Democratic convention opens in Chicago on Aug. 19.
LEARN MORE: Most Democrats think Kamala Harris would make a good president, AP-NORC poll finds
Minnesota Rep. Betty McCollum, who has called on Biden to step down, has explicitly endorsed Harris as her replacement.
“To give Democrats a strong and viable path to winning the White House, I call on President Biden to release his delegates and empower Vice President Harris to run to become the Democratic presidential nominee,” McCollum said in his statement.
It’s unclear what else the president could do, if anything, to reverse the trend and win back Democratic lawmakers and voters who are wary of his ability to defeat Trump and serve another term after his faltering performance in last month’s debate.
Biden, who sent a defiant letter to congressional Democrats vowing to stay in the race, has yet to visit the Capitol to shore up his support, an absence noted by senators and representatives.
The president held a series of virtual conversations with various caucuses last week, some of which ended badly.
On a call with the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, one Democrat, Rep. Mike Levin of California, told Biden he should step down. On another call with the Congressional Progressive Caucus, Biden got defensive when Rep. Jared Huffman of California asked him to consider meeting with top party leaders to discuss a path forward.
Huffman was one of four Democratic lawmakers who called Friday for Biden to step down.
At the same time, Biden still has strong support. He won the endorsement of the campaign arm of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus on Friday, and has the support of leaders of the Congressional Black Caucus and the Congressional Progressive Caucus.
Associated Press journalists Joey Cappelletti in East Lansing, Michigan, and Mary Clare Jalonick, Seung Min Kim, Farnoush Amiri and Darlene Superville in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, contributed to this report.
