Schumer has doubts about Biden but won’t undermine him, say Democrats

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) has confided to some Democratic senators in private conversations that he too has serious doubts about President Biden’s ability to beat former President Trump, but he has also underscored to colleagues that it’s ultimately up to Biden whether to stay in the race, according to Senate Democratic sources.

These sources say Schumer agrees Biden’s chances of winning in November don’t appear promising, but he hasn’t reached the conclusion that the incumbent’s reelection campaign is “irretrievable.”

Schumer has told colleagues he doesn’t want to say anything publicly to question Biden’s viability as a candidate or to pressure him to abandon his campaign, because he fears that would undermine the president and could hurt Democrats downballot in the fall election, Senate sources say.

Schumer has made these points to colleagues amid rising frustration in the party and in his caucus, with some Senate Democrats grumbling that their leader hasn’t done enough to press Biden to reconsider his decision to continue his reelection bid.

It’s a bit of a contrast to former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s behind-the-scenes work. The California Democrat has been working to put pressure on Biden to reconsider his decision to stay at the top of the party’s presidential ticket, a number of Democratic lawmakers familiar with her efforts told The Hill.

Concerns within the Democratic Party are widespread.

Several Democrats told senior Biden officials at a meeting hosted at the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee headquarters Thursday that they do not think Biden appears up to the job of serving another four years as president, and noted they have heard the same from many of their own constituents.

The meeting grew “heated” at times, according to one person familiar with the discussion, because some senators in the room felt the campaign had largely ignored the advice of colleagues to put Biden in more unscripted moments or adversarial television interviews to demonstrate to voters that he can think clearly on his feet in challenging situations.

Biden made another embarrassing flub at the conclusion of the NATO summit in Washington on Thursday when he mistakenly introduced Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky as “President Putin” to the audience.

Some Democrats saw Senate President Pro Tempore Patty Murray’s (D-Wash.) pointed warning to the Biden campaign Monday night that “we need to see a much more forceful and energetic candidate on the campaign trail in the very near future” as stepping in to fill a leadership void created by Schumer’s careful neutrality on Biden’s future.  

But Schumer has earned praise for not trying to steer the conversation one way or another during Tuesday’s Democratic caucus lunch, when he gave both Biden’s defenders and critics an equality opportunity to express their views.  

And Schumer invited the top-level Biden campaign staff to brief Senate Democrats and to directly respond to their concerns.

He last spoke to Biden the Wednesday before July Fourth, according to a source familiar with his communications with the president.

Democratic senators spent more than an hour venting their concerns with senior Biden advisers Mike Donilon and Steve Ricchetti and Biden campaign Chair Jen O’Malley Dillon at Thursday’s meeting.

Senators pressed Biden’s advisers to explain how they expected to overcome the incumbent’s trailing position in several key battleground states, including Arizona, Georgia, Nevada and Pennsylvania. And they demanded to know how the campaign saw a path to victory when Biden’s favorable rating is more than 20 percentage points lower than his unfavorable rating.

A New York Times/Siena College poll conducted after the debate showed Biden with a 36 percent favorable rating and 61 percent unfavorable rating.

Biden’s political team, however, pointed to a Washington Post/ABC News poll showing Biden and Trump are in a dead heat with 46 percent and 47 support, respectively. It surveyed 2,431 adults July 5-9, according to a person familiar with the meeting.

Biden’s advisers argued to senators that they are “in the zone” of being competitive and pointed out that Labor Day, when undecided voters traditionally start paying more attention to the campaigns, is still weeks away.

They did not, however, provide any details about Biden’s mental acuity or physical health to address the question raised by several Democratic lawmakers of whether the president’s poor debate performance was just one bad night or emblematic of a lasting condition.

“I need to see and hear more of the analytics and the data that show a path for victory,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) said after the meeting.

“My concerns remain. More important than my concerns, Joe Biden needs to address the questions that have been raised by the American people,” he added.

He described the meeting with Biden’s team as “constructive, serious, frank.”

Publicly, Schumer has uttered the same refrain over and over this week when asked about Biden’s mental acuity and physical stamina: “As I’ve said before, I’m with Joe.”

He used that line three times when asked at a press conference Tuesday about Democrats’ concerns about Biden’s viability as a candidate.

Privately, Schumer has steadfastly refused to give definitive answers to colleagues about taking action to pressure Biden to abandon his campaign, and he hasn’t circulated any specific metric, such as a polling floor, that would prompt him to take action.

By keeping his options open in some conversations with Democratic donors, Schumer has fueled speculation that he is ready to dump Biden from the ticket.  

Schumer released a statement Wednesday evening in response to a report by Axios that he is “open to dumping Biden” by reiterating his support for the president.

“As I made clear repeatedly publicly and privately, I support President Biden and remain committed to ensure Donald Trump is defeated in November,” he said.

Democratic senators acknowledge the public criticisms from Democratic lawmakers about Biden’s fitness to serve a second term will likely fuel Republican attack adds.

“Republicans will take anything we say about Biden now and put it in ads that will hit us in the face in the fall,” warned one Democratic senator who said Schumer has “a really tough decision.”

“The stakes are very high, and no one knows the future,” the lawmaker said.

Some Democratic senators think there’s a “50-50 chance” that Schumer will join hands with House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), and possibly other prominent Democrats such as Pelosi or former President Obama to reach out to Biden to urge him to drop out of the race.

“I suspect he’s pondering whether he and Jeffries and Pelosi need to make an all-out push to encourage Biden to do the best thing for the country. We really don’t know,” one Democratic senator said of Schumer’s next move.

The senator said “at least two-thirds” of the Senate Democratic caucus “do not see a pathway for Biden to win this.”

The senator said there’s widespread worry among Democratic lawmakers that poor voter turnout for Biden would hurt Senate incumbents such as Jon Tester (D-Mont.) and Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), who told colleagues in a meeting Tuesday they think Biden will lose to Trump.

“It puts a whole bunch of Senate races at risk. If you get a small drop in turnout, even if people still support Tester and Brown — if they don’t bother to show up because there’s not a head of the ticket they want to vote on, we could lose a bunch of races. And that’s certainly a concern to Schumer,” the lawmaker said.

And the Democratic senator complained that Biden’s campaign is “not letting him do” unscripted events.

“Why are they not letting him do that? We think it’s because they know that he’s not really up to the task. That is why so many senators feel it would be the right thing for him to stand down,” the lawmaker added.