Isolated at home, the embattled US president has dismissed reports that he is ready to step down
US President Joe Biden will return to the campaign trail next week, his aides said in a statement on Friday. Biden’s staffers have struggled to downplay reports that his campaign’s days are numbered.
Biden has been in quarantine at his Delaware home since Wednesday, when he tested positive for Covid-19. While the diagnosis essentially paused his campaign, it did not stop an onslaught of media stories suggesting that Democratic lawmakers and power-brokers – including former President Barack Obama – were on the cusp of forcing the 81-year-old to suspend his bid for reelection over his alleged cognitive impairment.
Biden’s aides pushed back against these reports on Friday. “I look forward to getting back on the campaign trail next week to continue exposing the threat of Donald Trump’s Project 2025 agenda while making the case for my own record,” Biden’s campaign said in a statement attributed to the president.
Drawn up by a conservative think-tank, ‘Project 2025’ is a manifesto calling on Trump to gut federal agencies, neutralize the power of US intelligence agencies, and impose severe restrictions on immigration and abortion rights, amid a broader right-wing reshaping of the US government. The Biden campaign has made ‘Project 2025’ a key line of attack on Trump, despite the former president insisting that he played no part in its creation and only endorses the Republican party’s platform.
In an interview with MSNBC on Friday, Biden’s campaign chairwoman, Jen O’Malley Dillon, reiterated that he was not dropping out.
“Absolutely the president is in this race,” O’Malley Dillon said of Biden. “The president is the leader of our campaign and of the country and he is clearly… the best person to take on Donald Trump and prosecute that case and present his vision.”
O’Malley Dillon acknowledged that Biden’s campaign has “seen some slippage in support” since his disastrous debate performance against Trump last month. However, she insisted that the Democrat has only experienced a “small movement” in polls, and claimed that the president would be endorsed by a “significant national organization” next week.
Trump formally accepted his party’s nomination for the presidency at the Republican National Convention on Thursday. While Biden won the Democratic Party’s largely non-competitive primary election, he has yet to be officially anointed as the party’s candidate. The Democratic National Committee plans to nominate Biden by a virtual vote ahead of the party’s convention in August, although some Democrats who want Biden to step down have criticized this decision, calling instead for an open convention where a different candidate can be selected.
