US President Joe Biden has become ‘more receptive’ to the idea of dropping out of the presidential race amid growing apprehensions regarding his declining cognitive capabilities.
Biden held discussions around the topic with some Democrat leaders, according to a report in The New York Times. Though Biden has not indicated that he is certainly opting out of the re-election bid, the Democrats said he had been willing to listen to ‘rundowns of new and worrying polling data’.
“He’s being receptive. Not as defiant as he is publicly,” one senior Democratic adviser was quoted as saying.
“He’s gone from saying, ‘Kamala can’t win,’ to ‘Do you think Kamala can win?’. It’s still unclear where he’s going to land but seems to be listening.”
On Wednesday (Jul 17), reports emerged that former House Speaker, Nancy Pelosi, held a private conversation with Biden where she told the president that he could not beat Donald Trump, come the November elections.
Notably, this phone call marked the second conversation between the California lawmaker and Biden since the president’s disastrous debate on June 27.
The actual date of the conversation was not clear, but the source described it as being within the last week. Pelosi and Biden also spoke in early July.
Biden has been fluffing his lines in public speeches for a long time but his conduct at last month’s presidential debate was perhaps the last straw that led even the biggest Democrat leaders to voice their concerns openly about the president.
During the last day of the NATO Summit in Washington last week, Biden mistakenly referred to his Ukrainian counterpart, President Volodymyr Zelensky as “President Putin”.
Later during his highly-anticipated solo press conference in Washington, Biden made another gaffe by referring to Vice President Kamala Harris as “Vice President Trump”.