The most serious political crisis of Joe Biden’s presidency deepened Wednesday as Rep. Adam Schiff, a prominent House Democrat who is a heavy favorite in California’s Senate race in November, called for him to step aside as his party’s nominee against Donald Trump.
Biden had been scheduled to appear at a conference in Las Vegas on Wednesday afternoon, but he canceled at the last minute after testing positive for the coronavirus. The White House said he had mild symptoms but would return to his home in Rehoboth Beach, Del., to self-isolate.
Biden had been maintaining an aggressive campaign schedule to demonstrate vigor in the face of doubts among Democrats about his ability to mount a robust campaign against Trump. His second covid diagnosis will sideline him just as calls among Democratic lawmakers for his removal from the ticket are resuming.
Schiff is the first elected Democrat to publicly suggest that Biden make way for a new candidate since a gunman attempted to assassinate Trump at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania on Saturday. But even as the nation’s attention was focused on the shooting, which killed one rallygoer and seriously wounded two others, Democrats continued to privately debate Biden’s fitness to serve as their nominee.
By becoming the 23rd congressional Democrat to call for Biden’s exit from the 2024 race, Schiff, a prodigious fundraiser who led the first House effort to impeach Trump, pushed his party’s debate over Biden’s fitness back into the public eye.
A former House Intelligence Committee chairman, Schiff is a close ally of former House speaker Nancy Pelosi, a widely respected party elder who has known Biden for decades and is widely seen as one of the few Democrats who might be able to persuade him to drop out. Many House Democrats remain deeply concerned about Biden’s ability to defeat Trump, and some are contemplating going public about their displeasure once members return to Washington next week, according to multiple House Democratic lawmakers and aides, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss their planning.
Biden has claimed that ordinary Democrats support him remaining in the race. But polls conducted after his shaky performance in his June 27 debate with Trump have found anywhere between 40 percent and 65 percent of Democrats saying the president should drop out of the race.
Time is running out for change at the top of the Democratic ticket. On Wednesday, the Democratic National Committee reaffirmed its plan to hold a virtual roll call to nominate Biden during the first week of August, nearly two weeks before the party’s convention is set to begin.
In his statement, Schiff called Biden “one of the most consequential presidents in our nation’s history” but questioned his ability to defeat Trump and said a “second Trump presidency will undermine the very foundation of our democracy.”
Schiff, a fierce critic of Trump who served on House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, has long positioned himself as a defender of democratic norms. But he no longer seems to believe that Biden is his party’s best standard-bearer in that fight.
“While the choice to withdraw from the campaign is President Biden’s alone, I believe it is time for him to pass the torch,” Schiff said.
Biden’s campaign argued in an emailed statement that the incumbent has garnered “extensive support” from members of Congress, including in swing states, and from “voices across the party.” In a letter to congressional Democrats last week, Biden said he was “firmly committed” to staying in the race.
“I can respond to all this by saying clearly and unequivocally: I wouldn’t be running again if I did not absolutely believe I was the best person to beat Donald Trump in 2024,” Biden said.
In his statement, Schiff vowed to support whoever the Democratic nominee is, even if that ends up being Biden.
“There is only one singular goal: defeating Donald Trump. The stakes are just too high,” Schiff said.
Other prominent House Democrats who have urged Biden to step aside include Reps. Jerry Nadler (N.Y.) and Adam Smith (Wash.), the top Democrats on the Judiciary and Armed Services committees, respectively.
Biden said this month that only “the Lord Almighty” could get him to drop out. But in an excerpt from a BET interview set to air Wednesday night, he seemed to soften his position, indicating that he would reconsider if his doctors told him to. Biden also said that he originally ran as a transitional candidate, intending to “pass it on to someone else,” but didn’t think he had finished the work he set out to do.
“Quite frankly, I think the only thing age brings is a little bit of wisdom,” Biden said in the interview. “I think I’ve demonstrated I know how to get things done for the country, in spite of the fact we were told we couldn’t get it done. But there’s more to do, and I’m reluctant to walk away from that.”
The Washington Post reported Monday that some Democratic lawmakers and strategists are concerned that Biden is receiving advice from only a small number of aides, limiting the scope and type of information he receives.
White House spokesman Andrew Bates said Biden has a “well-rounded team” of advisers who “tell the truth and keep the well-being of the American people front of mind.”
Schiff’s call for Biden to step aside is a change from the view he expressed in an interview with Post opinion columnist Karen Tumulty in February, shortly before he advanced in the California primary to fill the state’s open Senate seat.
Schiff shrugged off a suggestion that Democrats were in danger of losing their Senate majority and instead predicted that it was Trump who would take down his party’s ticket.
“I feel when we get to the fall, [voters are] going to be so exhausted with all the Trump drama and trauma,” Schiff said. “They are not going to want four more years of that soul-crushing division in the White House. … We should not lose sight of the fact that he could really drag their whole party.”
Leigh Ann Caldwell, Toluse Olorunnipa, Tyler Pager, Michael Scherer, Marianna Sotomayor and Patrick Svitek contributed to this report.