(Washington) The pressure continues to mount on Joe Biden, whom a first senator from his party asked on Wednesday to abandon his candidacy against Donald Trump, as did George Clooney, in a call revealing the erosion of support from the most loyal Democratic sympathizers.
Vermont Senator Peter Welch calls on the US president to “withdraw from the race” for the White House “for the good of the country,” in a column published by the Washington Post.
He is the first to do it directly.
PHOTO HAIYUN JIANG, THE NEW YORK TIMES
Vermont Senator Peter Welch
On Wednesday, one of his colleagues, Colorado Senator Michael Bennet, said that Biden would lose if he remained in the race and would drag down with him the Democratic congressmen running for the legislative elections that will be held at the same time as the presidential election in November.
Axios reports that Senate leader Chuck Schumer, another party figure, is now ready to consider another run. Democratic senators are scheduled to have lunch Thursday with top Biden advisers.
At least eight Democratic representatives from the House of Representatives, the other branch of Congress, have also publicly called for the American president to throw in the towel.
Clooney
“I like Joe Biden. But we need another candidate,” wrote actor, director and producer George Clooney in the New York Times.
PHOTO EVAN AGOSTINI/INVISION, PROVIDED BY ASSOCIATED PRESS
George Clooney
This lifelong supporter of the Democratic Party recalls having participated in mid-June in a fundraising evening for the American president: “It’s terrible to say, but the Joe Biden I was with three weeks ago is not the […] Joe Biden of 2010. Not even the Joe Biden of 2020. He was the same man we saw in the failed June 27 debate against Donald Trump.
That evening, the 81-year-old Democrat appeared very confused and very tired.
George Clooney’s exit comes after other defections in the world of cinema, until now a powerful media and financial relay for Joe Biden.
NBC on Wednesday quoted a source close to Joe Biden’s campaign as saying that fundraising is now “disastrous.”
On MSNBC, Nancy Pelosi, the former Speaker of the House of Representatives who remains very influential, put Joe Biden against the wall.
PHOTO HAIYUN JIANG, THE NEW YORK TIMES
Nancy Pelosi, former Speaker of the House of Representatives
“It’s up to the president to decide whether he’s going to run” in November against his Republican predecessor Donald Trump, she said on the network popular with Democrats. “Time is running out.”
The American president, however, considers that his decision has already been made.
Crucial press conference
He wrote to his party’s parliamentarians on Monday to tell them that he was “firmly determined to stay in the race.”
Joe Biden, who has been stepping up his activities in recent days to try to dispel doubts about his energy and stamina, spoke briefly on Wednesday during a meeting of the main American union group, the AFL-CIO, then he participated in a NATO summit in Washington.
It is on the sidelines of this meeting of the defense organization that Joe Biden is to give a highly anticipated press conference on Thursday, because it will allow his mental alertness to be gauged.
This will also be the case for an interview on Monday on the NBC channel.
Several polls conducted since the debate indicate that Donald Trump is maintaining or even widening his advantage over his Democratic rival.
A study by the Cook Political Report institute, based on 21 major opinion polls, credits the 78-year-old Republican with 47% of voting intentions at the national level, compared to 44% for Joe Biden.
Kate Bedingfield, who was one of the hosts of Joe Biden’s 2020 campaign, wrote on Twitter on Wednesday that the current president’s team absolutely must present its “strategy” in the face of these poor figures.