White House, Biden campaign slam replacement chatter after debate

President Biden’s campaign aides and top surrogates scrambled Friday to shut down talk he might drop out of the race following a disastrous showing at a debate with former President Trump.

A campaign official dismissed talk of Biden withdrawing, while top Democrats viewed as potential successors to Biden worked to stamp out any talk of replacing the president. 

“Democrats, stop worrying and start working. We all have the responsibility here to do our part,” Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro (D), who has been talked about as a potential 2028 candidate, said Friday morning on MSNBC when asked about if he’s concerned about Biden being at the top of the ticket.

“Sitting here and hand-wringing, sitting here and fretting, is not the answer,” he added.

“I think it’s unhelpful, and I think it’s unnecessary,” California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D), who has been viewed as a White House contender, said on MSNBC late Thursday night. “We’ve got to go in, we’ve got to keep our head high, and, as I say, we’ve got to have the back of this president. You don’t turn your back because of one performance.”

Biden’s performance in Thursday night’s debate was largely panned, even by some members of his own party, who acknowledged it will stoke conversations about whether the president should be replaced atop the Democratic ticket before August’s convention.

He started the debate off slowly and, throughout the 90 minutes, his voice was often raspy, which the White House attributed to a cold shortly after the debate began. He at times lost his train of thought, couldn’t finish a sentence or struggled to make his point clearly.

The White House, which typically refers to the campaign for 2024 matters, weighed in Friday morning about the chatter surrounding dropping out.

“That’s not happening. The only things being replaced are recession-causing MAGAnomics and radical abortion bans. These people have panicked as we won all along,” a White House official told The Hill.

Some Democrats argued it was unreasonable at this point in the cycle to change the top of the ticket, particularly because it would require Biden agreeing to step down, something he has shown no interest in doing.

“Biden ain’t going nowhere,” former South Carolina state Rep. Bakari Sellers posted on the social platform X. “It’s June. Let go of your pearls and dry your bed. He lost a debate. Bad. But it’s June. You’re not replacing him. So leave your random combinations in your chats. You’re not nominating Gretch or Gavin or Wes over Kamala. Stop it.”

The Biden campaign on Thursday touted its best fundraising day of the 2024 cycle, evidence of what it argued was clear support among voters for Biden despite hand-wringing from pundits.

White House and campaign officials highlighted Trump’s numerous falsehoods and his answers about Jan. 6, prosecuting opponents and whether he would accept the 2024 election results as a clear indication he is still an unlikable general election candidate.

“If people are going to say that it was a bad night for Joe Biden, people have to say that it was a bad night for Donald Trump,” a Democratic source told The Hill. “We know that as the debate went on, voters remembered exactly why they voted Donald Trump out of office, and it’s because he doesn’t care about them.”

For months, polling has shown a close race in the battleground states of Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania, which are likely to decide the outcome of the election.

But that’s unlikely to stop Democrats from panicking about their prospects after a disastrous performance by Biden in which he struggled to land blows against Trump, even on key issues such as abortion.

The immediate response from a panel of Democratic operatives and political pundits following the CNN debate was that there was panic in the party and discussions over whether Biden should continue with his campaign for reelection.

“I think you’re going to hear discussions that I don’t know will lead to anything but there are going to be discussions about whether he should continue,” David Axelrod, a senior adviser to former President Obama, said on CNN.

Former White House press secretary Jen Psaki, speaking on MSNBC, said there was “chatter” about whether to replace Biden on the ticket coming from members of Congress and officials with Democratic interest groups.

A change atop the ticket for Democrats would require Biden to bow out, though, and there’s little evidence Biden is going anywhere.

The president himself brushed off concerns about his performance during a stop at a Waffle House following the debate Thursday, telling reporters, “We did well,” and saying it’s difficult to debate a candidate who lies as often as Trump.

Biden speaks often about his decision to run for the White House in 2020, citing Trump’s response to the deadly white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Va., in 2017 and his belief that the soul of the nation was on the line. The president, buoyed by his victory over Trump in 2020, still feels he’s the best candidate to defeat Trump again in 2024.

“Of course he’s not dropping out,” Biden campaign spokesperson Seth Schuster said in a text message to The Hill.