Top Democrats in Washington walking a careful line on Biden amid party panic about his candidacy : NPR

Top Democrats in Washington are mired in an ongoing crisis over President Biden’s continued candidacy that has been exacerbated by his recent COVID diagnosis.

Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-NY, and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-NY, are all responding to leaked reports that they have directly appealed to Biden to step aside. None are publicly denying the leaks. Democrats have been panicking—both in public and in private—as they try to appeal to Biden to voluntarily step aside.

Biden has continued to insist that he is still expects to be the party’s nominee and is undeterred from his campaign.

None of the top leaders have publicly declared Biden should remain the party’s nominee, fueling more questions from rank and file members about how explicit they have been in their private discussions with the president.

A Pelosi spokesperson released a statement Thursday responding to reports published by CNN that Pelosi told Biden that polls show he cannot defeat Donald Trump and his continued candidacy could prevent Democrats from retaking control of the House. The statement does not explicitly deny the reporting.

“Speaker Pelosi respects the confidentiality of her meetings and conversations with the President of the United States,” the spokesman wrote. “Sadly, the feeding frenzy from the press based on anonymous sources misrepresents any conversations the Speaker may have had with the President.”

The continued panic has escalated during the Republican National Convention where Presidential nominee Donald Trump is set to accept his party’s nomination tonight.

The Pelosi statement follows a similar response from Jeffries and Schumer following reporting in The Washington Post that the pair asked Biden to step aside in a recent conversation.

A Jeffries spokesman released a statement Wednesday saying the pair “expressed the full breadth of insight, perspective and conclusions about the path forward” without explicitly denying that they called on Biden to step aside.

“Leader Hakeem Jeffries privately met with President Joe Biden a week ago. On behalf of the House Democratic caucus, he directly expressed the full breadth of insight, perspective and conclusions reached about the path forward – after extensive colleague to colleague discussions,” the spokesman wrote. “Any further characterization of the private, one-on-one meeting between President Biden and Leader Jeffries is speculative and uninformed. The letter sent by Leader Jeffries to his House Democratic colleagues speaks for itself.”

A Schumer spokesman took a similarly careful approach, calling reporting “idle speculation.”

“Leader Schumer conveyed the views of his caucus directly to President Biden on Saturday,” the spokesman wrote.

Congressional Democrats are frustrated that their efforts to communicate to the president that he could be a drag on their hopes of flipping the House and keeping the Senate are not getting through to his small circle of close advisors. Many are hoping that their top leaders, and the party’s most respected political strategist, Pelosi, can appeal directly to Biden.