President Biden is trying to figure out how to tamp down Democratic anxiety after last week’s disastrous debate performance.
President Joe Biden’s family is urging him to stay in the race and keep fighting despite last week’s disastrous debate performance, even as some members of his clan privately expressed exasperation at how he was prepared for the event by his staff, people close to the situation said Sunday.
Biden huddled with his wife, children and grandchildren at Camp David while he tried to figure out how to tamp down Democratic anxiety. While his relatives were acutely aware of how poorly he did against former President Donald Trump, they argued that he could still show the country that he remains capable of serving for another four years.
Biden has been soliciting ideas from advisers about how to proceed, and his staff has been discussing whether he should hold a news conference or sit for interviews to defend himself and change the narrative, but nothing has been decided. The campaign scheduled what could be a crucial call with its national fundraising committee for Monday to calm nerves and take temperatures.
One of the strongest voices imploring Biden to resist pressure to drop out was his son Hunter Biden, whom the president has long leaned on for advice, said one of the people informed about the discussions, who, like others, spoke on condition of anonymity to share internal deliberations. Hunter Biden wants Americans to see the version of his father that he knows — scrappy and in command of the facts — rather than the stumbling, aging president Americans saw on Thursday night.
Other family members were trying to figure out how they could be helpful. At least one of the president’s grandchildren has expressed interest in getting more involved with the campaign, perhaps by talking with influencers on social media, according to the informed person.
The anger among Democrats was made evident Sunday when John Morgan, a top Democratic donor who is close to Biden’s brother Frank, publicly blamed the advisers who managed the president’s debate preparations, citing by name Ron Klain, Anita Dunn and Bob Bauer.
“Biden has for too long been fooled by the value of Anita Dunn and her husband,” Morgan wrote on social media. “They need to go … TODAY. The grifting is gross. It was political malpractice.”
He elaborated in a subsequent interview. “It would be like if you took a prizefighter who was going to have a title fight and put him in a sauna for 15 hours then said, ‘Go fight,’” he said. “I believe that the debate is solely on Ron Klain, Bob Bauer and Anita Dunn.”
Members of Biden’s family were likewise said to be focused on the president’s staff, including Dunn, a White House senior adviser, and her husband, Bauer, the president’s personal attorney, who played Trump during debate rehearsals.
They were asking why Klain, the former White House chief of staff who ran the preparations, would in their view allow him to be overloaded with statistics, and they were angry that Biden, who arrived for the debate in Atlanta with a summer tan, was made up to look pale and pallid, said one of the people, who has been in touch with several members of the family.
But the person said that the president himself was not among those who were upset and that he still trusted Klain, Dunn, Bauer and the others.
