Biden and Harris called into campaign all-staff call

Biden and Harris called into campaign all-staff call

Some breaking news in to CNN. We’ve learned that moments ago, President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris called into today’s campaign. All staff call at the white House. At any moment, we are expecting to hear from the white House press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre. Taking a number of difficult questions after she did already yesterday about the president’s future. CNN’s M.J. Lee is live for us inside the briefing room. MJ. You have some new reporting specifically about the chief of staff and a call that he held with staff at the white House, telling them to keep their heads up and to focus on their work. Tell us more about that. Reporting. Yeah, this is new reporting coming in from our colleague Betsy Klein, who reports that the president, Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris called in to an all campaign staff call just moments ago. This was described by a source as being a pep talk, and that both of them in this call describe the stakes of the election at that near the end, that at the near the end of the call, excuse me, the president said, let’s go win this. And as you mentioned, there are other efforts coming in the campaign and the white House, as well as a lot of folks, a lot of staffers, aides that are working in the campaign, the white House are really worried about the future of the 2024 campaign. We know that white House Chief of Staff Jeff Zients also had a white House aides call trying to bring some sort of reassurance, given the events of the last several days. And we are expecting here at white House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre to take the podium any minute. And we expect that it is going to be yet another very tough white House press briefing, just to remind you yesterday that you, of course, confronted a barrage of questions about the president’s health, about the release of potentially more medical records or any other information that could give us a better sense about the state of his health and even questions about whether Doctor Kevin O’Connor, the president’s physician, could be somebody who could take questions from reporters. So we do expect those lines of questioning to continue. And, of course, all of this is coming out with the new reporting that President Biden has privately acknowledged to an ally that he understands that the next couple of days, the next stretch of days is going to be incredibly important in terms of whether or not he can actually save his candidacy. And what I think is interesting, Boris, to note is that we are seeing the president finally starting to get a little bit more involved himself in the conversations that he is having in private with lawmakers. He is, of course, a hosting some Democratic governors who had expressed concerns about his age and the viability of his candidacy. And then, of course, there’s that big interview that he is doing on Friday with ABC news, not to mention the press conference that the white House has been talking about that he will participate in next week at the NATO summit. So we’ll see how the white House, answers all of the questions that we are expecting it to get again today. But again, it is important to sort of emphasize the moment that we are in. This is a white House in a campaign that is very much in crisis mode. And they are also in survival mode right now. Boris. And Jeff, you have new reporting that privately, a growing number of Democrats want Biden to drop out of the race, some as early as this week. Boris, there has been a, really growing swell of sentiment that it is time to move on with this. We’ve heard a bit of it publicly from, Congressman Lloyd Doggett of Texas and many others behind the scenes are saying a similar thing, that it is time. A yes, they respect and appreciate the president’s record, but it is also time to, really see what is going on here. Now, the president, we are told in his campaign, but, Jeff, since the white House chief of staff, as I’m sure was saying, and the campaign manager, they’re hosting, separate staff calls and trying to urge people to stay focused hard to stay focused, though, of course, on this one. There are these growing calls, the most important meeting of the day, that lunch that is going on right now with the president and the vice president and that meeting of governors, this evening, Democratic governors flying to Washington, virtually all of them, all of the main ones, some of them who could be considered also candidates to meet with the president. So you get the sense, the feeling that so much has changed in 24 hours. A patience is wearing very thin, and time is running out to make something of a move. However, it is still Biden’s decision to make. So as MJ was saying, I’m told privately he has said that he does not want to drag down the Democratic ticket, but has not yet reached the point of making a decision. Yeah, time is of the essence when making this kind of decision. There’s actually a new poll out today, Jeff, from CBS news, after the debate that shows a majority of voters think that the president should not run. Walk us through those numbers. Look at that. Is some of the data that they are looking at. Of course, the president and his campaign team are looking closer at battleground, data from those seven battleground states. But look at these national numbers here. Do you think Joe Biden should be running for reelection as president? 69% say no. That’s nearly 7 in 10 voters. 31% say yes. So that certainly is an indication at a national level. It’s hard to imagine battlegrounds would be any different than that. But again, this is the president’s choice to make. First lady Jill Biden, interestingly, is in Michigan campaigning today. The campaign will go on. Democrats are trying to sort of redirect the focus to the contrast with Donald Trump. For us. One interesting thing the Trump campaign has been silent throughout all of this, certainly watching this, this campaign. But you also have to wonder, are Democrats going to, you know, be sort of worrying what they may get here and unknown and Kamala Harris or someone else? This is an unusual dynamic in this race. Friday, it’s four months until Election Day. Yeah. That’s why the primary process is so important and so lengthened. So that this can get worked out. If this happens now, it’d be a very abridged and potentially harmful process of the Democratic convention next month, but they have even less time to find someone else should it reach that point. If we get to that point. Jeff Zeleny, thank you so much

President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris called into the Biden campaign’s all-staff call today, a source familiar with the call says. The source described it as a “pep talk” in which Biden and Harris detailed the stakes of the election. #CNN #News

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