President Joe Biden said he would be open to dropping out of the race if he developed a medical condition or doctors told him he should exit, he said in an interview that will air Wednesday.
“If there had some medical condition that emerged, if somebody, if the doctors came to me and said ‘you got this problem, that problem,'” Biden answered in response to BET’s Ed Gordon asking him if anything could convince him to bow out.
Biden also addressed his previous commitment to being a bridge candidate.
“When I originally ran you may remember it I said I was going to be a transitional candidate and I thought that I’d be able to move from this to pass it on to someone else, but I didn’t anticipate things getting so so so divided and quite frankly I think the only thing age brings a little bit of wisdom,” he told Gordon. “I think I’ve demonstrated that I know how to get things done for the country in spite of the fact that they told me we couldn’t get it done, but there’s more to do and I’m reluctant to walk away from that,” he concluded.
Despite earning a brief respite in the news cycle after the assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump dominated headlines, negative news coverage and calls for Biden’s electoral exit have picked back up in recent days. (RELATED: Literally Anyone Would Do Better Than Biden According To Polling)
Most recently, Democratic California Rep. and former House Intelligence Committee Chair Adam Schiff publicly called for Biden to leave the race, arguing that it’s time for Biden to “pass the torch,” in a statement to the Los Angeles Times.
Schiff is the twentieth Congressional Democrat to call for Biden to step down.
Biden’s June 27 debate performance immediately prompted media allies, who had previously defended him ardently, to question his viability.
Democratic Texas Rep. Lloyd Doggett became the first House Dem to openly call for Biden to step down July 2. The floodgates then quickly opened, with other lawmakers quickly joining him, and reports emerging that other prominent House Dems like New York’s Rep. Jerry Nadler wanted him gone as well.
Biden has tried to run the gambit of media appearances and conference calls to quell his base’s fears, but he’s seemingly been unable to put out the fire.
His first long form interview post-debate, a sit-down with ABC News’ George Stephanopolous, did not stop the bleeding, as a fifth House Dem, Minnesota’s Angie Craig, called for him to exit the race, citing the interview and his debate performance.
And Biden reportedly had an abysmal call with the House Progressive Caucus on Saturday. The President allegedly lost his train of thought multiple times during the Zoom.
“The call was even worse than the debate. He was rambling; he’d start an answer then lose his train of thought, then would just say ‘whatever.’ He really couldn’t complete an answer. I lost a ton of respect for him,” one person on the call told the New York Post.
