House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) met with President Joe Biden on Thursday to discuss a path forward for the party heading into November even as a growing number of Democratic lawmakers call on the president to withdraw from the race.
Jeffries met with Biden in person shortly after the president held a press conference at the annual NATO summit, according to a “Dear Colleague” letter the Democratic leader sent to House lawmakers on Friday. The meeting comes after Jeffries met with several House Democrats over the weekend to air concerns about Biden’s viability and whether he is the strongest candidate to defeat former President Donald Trump in November.
“On behalf of the House Democratic Caucus, I requested and was graciously granted a private meeting with President Joe Biden. That meeting occurred yesterday evening,” Jeffries wrote in the letter. “In my conversation with President Biden, I directly expressed the full breadth of insight, heartfelt perspectives and conclusions about the path forward that the Caucus has shared in our recent time together.”
The letter comes as at least 18 House Democrats have called on Biden to withdraw from the race over concerns about his age and whether he could carry out another four years in office. Those calls have steadily increased over the last week, even after Biden held his first solo press conference in eight months in an effort to prove his stamina and strength.
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But the press conference did little to ease the concerns of some Democrats, with at least three doing so immediately after his remarks were over. Rep. Brittany Petterson (D-CO) is the latest to call on him to withdraw, urging Biden to “pass the torch” in a statement issued Friday morning.
Biden has maintained he is the best-qualified candidate to take on Trump in November, telling reporters during his Thursday remarks that he is the most prepared to lead the country. The president conceded that if he would reconsider his candidacy if advisers told him he had no chance of winning, but Biden said he has not heard those calls — despite Democratic lawmakers from both chambers of Congress doing so in recent days.