Vulnerable House Democrat calls on Biden to end campaign ‘for the good of the country’ – as it happened

While many of his allies are expressing pessimism about Joe Biden’s re-election chances, other Democrats aren’t so sure.

CNN caught up with Pennsylvania senator Bob Casey, who is up for re-election in November in a purple state that polls show is moving away from Biden. He said he did not agree with his colleague Michael Bennet’s assessment that the party is on track to lose both control of Congress and the presidency if Biden remains:

George Clooney, the Academy Award-winning actor who is also a major Democratic fundraiser, says the party should find a new nominee for president.

Writing in the New York Times, he warns that Democrats will lose the Senate and House if Joe Biden remains their nominee, and says the president has not seemed quite the same in his recent interactions with him.

“I love Joe Biden. As a senator. As a vice president and as president. I consider him a friend, and I believe in him. Believe in his character. Believe in his morals. In the last four years, he’s won many of the battles he’s faced,” Clooney writes.

“But the one battle he cannot win is the fight against time. None of us can. It’s devastating to say it, but the Joe Biden I was with three weeks ago at the fund-raiser was not the Joe ‘big F-ing deal’ Biden of 2010. He wasn’t even the Joe Biden of 2020. He was the same man we all witnessed at the debate.”

Rather than calling directly on Biden to step down, Clooney instead argues that he has no chance of winning, and the party must act. Here’s more:

Is it fair to point these things out? It has to be. This is about age. Nothing more. But also nothing that can be reversed. We are not going to win in November with this president. On top of that, we won’t win the House, and we’re going to lose the Senate. This isn’t only my opinion; this is the opinion of every senator and congress member and governor that I’ve spoken with in private. Every single one, irrespective of what he or she is saying publicly …

It is disingenuous, at best, to argue that Democrats have already spoken with their vote and therefore the nomination is settled and done, when we just received new and upsetting information. We all think Republicans should abandon their nominee now that he’s been convicted of 34 felonies. That’s new and upsetting information as well. Top Democrats – Chuck Schumer, Hakeem Jeffries, Nancy Pelosi – and senators, representatives and other candidates who face losing in November need to ask this president to voluntarily step aside.

Over the past few days, Democratic congressman Ritchie Torres has repeatedly warned of the dangers the party faces from infighting over whether to keep Joe Biden on the ticket.

A few minutes ago, he tweeted a new statement, where he struck a slightly different note, by warning of “the down-ballot effect” of the Democratic nominee:

One wonders if he has become spooked by the possibility of Biden remaining on the ticket, resulting in the suffering of Democratic lawmakers in swing states and districts. However, Torres has not called on Biden to exit the race.

The “overwhelmingly negative” data Kate Bedingfield is referencing probably includes the Cook Political Report, which yesterday issued a slew of grim news for the Biden campaign.

The organization is one of the most closely watched forecasters in Washington DC, and it now believes that several swing states Joe Biden was hoping to win are leaning towards Donald Trump, specifically Arizona, Georgia and Nevada.

What’s even more worrying is that it also says Biden’s support has eroded in states that were thought to be more firmly in his court, including Minnesota and New Hampshire:

And if you are wondering what NE-02 is, we have a story all about that:

Kate Bedingfield, who served as Joe Biden’s communications director for the first two years of his term, called on his campaign to outline how the president can win re-election as polls continue to show him losing support:

Last night, Democratic senator Michael Bennet warned that if Joe Biden continues his campaign for president, not only will he lose to Donald Trump, but the GOP will take full control of Congress.

However, in his interview with CNN, the Colorado lawmaker did not go so far as to call on Biden to drop out. Here’s the video:

In an address to the Nato summit yesterday, Joe Biden announced new air defenses for Ukraine, while saying the alliance “is stronger than it’s ever been in its history”. It was exactly the sort of forceful speech the president’s allies have been looking for as he attempts to quell concerns over his fitness to serve that have erupted since the first presidential debate. Here’s more, from the Guardian’s Andrew Roth, Dan Sabbagh and Julian Borger:

Joe Biden has announced that Nato countries will provide Ukraine with five new strategic air defense systems as leaders began a summit in Washington, where the alliance was expected to declare Ukraine’s path toward Nato to be “irreversible”.

The promise of weapons deliveries, including anti-air defenses sought after by Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, came just a day after a deadly missile strike against a paediatric cancer hospital and other civilian targets in Ukraine that Biden called a “horrific reminder of Russia’s brutality”.

“All told, Ukraine will receive hundreds of additional interceptors over the next year, helping protect Ukrainian cities against Russian missiles and Ukrainian troops facing their attacks on the frontlines,” said Biden.

The headline speech was a critical step to convincing foreign leaders that Biden, 81, remains up to the task of leading the 32-member military alliance. It was also a key test in saving his presidential campaign following a disastrous debate against Donald Trump that led many in his own party to question his mental acuity.

In forceful tones, Biden said: “Before this war, Putin thought Nato would break. Today, Nato is stronger than it’s ever been in its history. When this senseless war began, Ukraine was a free country. Today it’s still a free country and the war will end with Ukraine remaining a free and independent country.”

“Russia will not prevail,” he said to rising applause. “Ukraine will prevail.”

In her interview with MSNBC, Pelosi offered what could be a timeline for how the question of Biden’s continued candidacy will be resolved.

She noted that the president was currently busy hosting Nato leaders at a summit in Washington DC, and that it might be best for Democrats if they held off on talk of replacing him while that high-profile event is ongoing.

“Over 30 heads of state are here. He is the host of it,” Pelosi said.

“I’ve said, ‘Everyone, let’s just hold off, whatever you’re thinking, either tell somebody privately, but you don’t have to put that out on the table, until we see how we go this week.’”

Former Democratic speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, who is thought to be among the lawmakers whose opinion Joe Biden cares about most, gave an interview to MSNBC this morning in which she signaled that the president’s future has not yet been decided.

Though Biden insists he has no intention of suspending his re-election campaign despite concerns over his performance in the first debate against Donald Trump, Pelosi said: “It’s up to the president to decide if he is going to run.”

When the interviewer pointed out that Biden has already made that decision, Pelosi said: “I want him to do whatever he decides to do”.

Here’s the moment:

Good morning, US politics blog readers. At the start of the week, it seemed possible that congressional Democrats would react to Joe Biden’s troubling debate performance and drop off in support by staging an organized effort to push him to drop out. Four days later, no such push has materialized and the president has made it clear he is not abandoning his re-election campaign – but that does not mean confidence about his ability to beat Donald Trump is widespread among Democrats. Last night, Colorado senator Michael Bennet publicly told CNN he did not think Biden could win re-election, just as forecasters at the Cook Political Report announced that several crucial swing states are tilting towards Trump. The former president is clearly enjoying his opponents’ struggles to decide if they should still support the candidate who vanquished him in the 2020 election. At a rally in Florida, he said Democrats are “having a full-scale breakdown” in a speech where he spent most of his time airing various grievances.

Here’s what else is going on today:

• Kamala Harris continued to defend Biden, reminding voters in Las Vegas yesterday that the president is a “fighter”.

• Nato leaders are meeting in Washington DC for their summit, where Ukraine’s defense against Russia is high on the agenda. Follow our live blog for more.

• House Republicans will try to pass legislation mandating proof of citizenship for people to vote in federal elections. The White House has signaled disapproval with the measure, saying it is unnecessary.