'Democrats Urge Biden to Make a Call on His Future Amidst Growing Pressure: Time is Running Out'

A handful more top Democrats on Wednesday questioned Joe Biden’s viability as a presidential candidate — and while there’s no flood of defections, several are publicly saying time is running out for the president to decide the future of his campaign.

Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.) said he would support a “mini-primary” ahead of the August convention to decide the nominee if Biden steps aside, while Rep. Summer Lee (D-Pa.) called Vice President Kamala Harris the “obvious choice” for the top of the ticket if he does. Sen. Peter Welch (D-Vt.) repeated that the “clock is ticking” for the president to convince voters he can perform unscripted.

And later Wednesday, Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-Ariz.) became the second House Democrat to call for Biden to abandon his bid for a second term following his shaky debate performance last week. In an interview with The New York Times, Grijalva said the president should “shoulder the responsibility for keeping that seat — and part of that responsibility is to get out of this race.”

The comments by high-profile members of the party are a shift in messaging in the past 24 hours: While outspoken Democrats are still broadly supportive of Biden, their patience is beginning to wear.

Biden said on a Zoom call with campaign and Democratic National Committee staff Wednesday afternoon, “I am running … no one’s pushing me out. I’m not leaving. I’m in this race to the end and we’re going to win,” POLITICO reported.

The president "said unequivocally to his team he is running for reelection and he is going to beat Donald Trump," according to a person familiar with Biden's comments granted anonymity because they weren't authorized to speak publicly.

Biden plans to meet with a host of Democratic governors Wednesday night and will appear for an interview with ABC News anchor George Stephanopoulos on Friday that will air over the weekend. Democrats are urging Biden to use these unscripted opportunities to demonstrate that he’s fit to win against former President Donald Trump in November.

Earlier Wednesday, Welch emphasized in an interview with CNN that “time is short” for Biden to show the public that he’s still up for the job.

“The only way for him in the campaign to respond is not by talking to senators or governors, because this is not a ‘tell me’ situation. It’s a ‘show me’ situation,” Welch said. “So he’d have to be out and about in the hurly-burly of a campaign, open-ended press conferences with folks like you, engagements with voters.”

Clyburn, a longtime Biden friend and ally whose endorsement was pivotal for the president in 2020, told CNN that Biden’s debate performance was “concerning.” He said if Biden did step aside, he would support a “mini-primary” between Harris and Democratic governors to decide the ticket. His office emphasized in a statement to POLITICO that the lawmaker was answering “a hypothetical question” and that he still supports Biden.

In a radio interview, Lee called on the party to “move very quickly” if the president chooses to step aside, adding “there is not going to be time for a primary. That time has passed, which means that the vice president is the obvious choice.”

Rep. Seth Moulton (D-Mass.) said in a statement Wednesday that he has “grave concerns about his ability to defeat” Trump and that “all viable options on the table.”

“When your current strategy isn’t working, it’s rarely the right decision to double down. President Biden is not going to get younger,” Moulton said. “I’m taking time to seriously consider the best strategy for Democrats to win this election and set our country on a positive path forward.”

“Maybe folks don’t want to hear, but we have time that is running out. Time is not on our side,” Lee told SiriusXM host Zerlina Maxwell on Wednesday. “We have a few months to do a monumental task. It’s not cheap and it’s not easy.”

Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-Texas) said Wednesday that he felt comfortable earlier publicly calling for Biden to step aside because of his 15-term seniority in the chamber and safe district in deep-blue Austin.

“I felt I was in a position to speak out about what I was hearing from so many of my colleagues and say, we need a different course,” Doggett said on CNN. “We can prevail in this election.”

And Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) told MSNBC’s Chris Hayes on Tuesday that the partywide discussion is a “moving target” that has “got to happen quickly.”

“I can guarantee you, there will be massive unity and focus on that task when we get to the end of this process,” Raskin said. “And it’s happening very quickly."

The Biden campaign has characterized Democratic defectors as “bed-wetters,” and surrogates and the White House have largely shut down concerns about the president’s health and mental acuity — a strategy Doggett said was counterproductive.

“They would be better off demonstrating that this president is fully able and capable to take on all comers, all questions, all pesky journalists who might want to ask him something he doesn't want to answer,” Doggett said. “It’s troubling that since Thursday, while there's been this big rally-around-our-man approach and discouraging public opposition of any kind, we haven't seen the president out doing just that.”

“It tells me they’re either pursuing the wrong strategy — or they have a problem,” Doggett added.

While Trump and his key allies have largely remained silent on the possibility of a Biden replacement, Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio) — one of the top contenders in the former president’s veepstakes — weighed in Wednesday via a post on X.

“Democrat Party elites and their media mouthpieces are now obsessed with replacing Biden on the ballot. But if he’s unfit to run for president, he certainly isn’t fit to *be* president,” Vance wrote. “If he doesn’t run again, he needs to resign as Commander in Chief.”

Kierra Frazier contributed to this story.