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Inside growing turmoil at the White House as leadership tries to get handle on staff who are 'freaking the f*** out' after Biden mishaps
The White House is struggling to calm the storm of outrage from Joe Biden's debate performance as Democratic lawmakers call for the president to exit the race and the White House staff are 'freaking the f*** out.'
White House chief of staff Jeff Zients is scheduled to hold an all-hands-on-deck staff call at 12:30 p.m. Wednesday to pump up disillusioned staff and reassure them that Biden will remain the nominee.
Additionally, Biden's campaign sent out an all-staff memo showing internal polls from battleground states that note Biden only dropped half a point in the fallout from his fumbling debate performance.
The move came to pre-empt what is expected to be bad polling news for the president.
'We are going to see a few polls come out today and we want you all to hear from us on what we know internally and what we expect to come externally,' the memo, obtained by Politico, reads. 'Polls are a snapshot in time and we should all expect them to continue to fluctuate — it will take a few weeks, not a few days, to get a full picture of the race.'
The White House is trying to calm staff fears after President Joe Biden's debate performance - above Biden with his deputy chief of staff Bruce Reed, senior adviser Mike Donilon and Deputy Chief of Staff Annie Tomasini
Amid the race to calm internal fears, there is a significant outreach operation to try and quell the growing calls for Biden to be replaced.
The president has been on the phone to lawmakers trying to shore up his support on Capitol Hill amid worries Republicans will take control of the House and Senate - along with the White House - in the upcoming elections, giving them unchecked power to run the country.
Biden also will meet with governors on Wednesday evening as he and his team scramble to stem even more defections.
Meanwhile, Jill Biden has been dispatched to the battleground states of Pennsylvania and Michigan to tout Biden's accomplishments in the White House as polls show him trailing Donald Trump.
The effort comes as questions continue to be asked about Biden's mental capabilities to handle the presidency and speculation about who could replace him as the Democratic presidential nominee.
'Everyone is freaking the f*** out,' an official told Axios.
But there appears to be a reason for the freak out.
A set of private polls from a pro-Biden super PAC showed the president losing ground — about two points — across all the most important battleground states, Puck news reported.
Biden was also now trailing in New Mexico, New Hampshire and Virginia, three states that were thought to be safely Democratic.
Biden trails Donald Trump in the Five Thirty-Eight polling average on the presidential race.
The president will return to the campaign trail on Friday, when he heads to Madison, Wis. There he also will sit down with ABC News in his first post-debate interview. He'll travel to Pennsylvania on Sunday.
The president also will hold a press conference next week, the White House announced.
But Democrats are keeping their distance.
Senator Tammy Baldwin, who faces re-election in Wisconsin, announced Tuesday morning she will not be joining Biden on stage when he campaigns in her hometown of Madison on Friday.
And many Democrats worry the president is moving too slowly to calm the panic about his candidacy and mental fitness.
White House Chief of Staff Jeff Zients will hold an all staff call on Wednesday
Donald Trump and Joe Biden at last week's debate where Biden fumbled in his answers
There also is talk of a brewing Democratic revolt in the House.
Maine's Jared Golden, Lloyd Doggett of Texas and Marie Gluesenkamp Perez of Washington State all either told Biden to drop out or said they believed he would lose to Trump on Tuesday.
Those defections were in addition to the collection of 25 House members - commonly referred to as 'frontliners' due to their status as moderates in swing districts - who are set to break with Biden and day now.
Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi emphasized Biden's multiple legislative accomplishments during an interview with MSNBC Tuesday but said it was legitimate to ask whether his debate performance was a one-night thing or a broader health problem. She said Trump should be given the same scrutiny.
'I think it's a legitimate question to say, 'Is this an episode or is this a condition?' And so when people ask that question, it's legitimate, of both candidates,' Pelosi said.
Biden, speaking at a campaign event in Virginia on Tuesday evening without a teleprompter, blamed his performance on a lack of sleep and noted he had done two international trips in the runup to the debate.
'The fact is that you know, I wasn´t very smart. I decided to travel around the world a couple times, going through around 100 time zones ... before ... the debate. Didn´t listen to my staff and came back and nearly fell asleep on stage,' he said. 'That's no excuse but it is an explanation.'
He was in France for the 85th anniversary of D-Day and then in Italy for the G7.
But he left out the seven days he spent at Camp David ahead of his showdown with Trump. He spent the week locked with aides in preparation for the debate.
However, Biden rarely began before 11 am and broke in the afternoon for a nap, the New York Times reported.
Some Democrats suggested Biden should be thinking about the broader party's future.
'He has to be honest with himself,' Democratic Representative Mike Quigley, a moderate from Illinois, told CNN on Tuesday.
'It's his decision. I just want him to appreciate at this time just how much it impacts, not just his race, but all the other races coming in November.'
And Rep. Jim Clyburn of South Carolina, whose endorsement of Biden in 2020 helped him become the nominee, told MSNBC that he still wanted a presidential ticket with Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.
But then he announced who he would endorse if Biden exited the race.
'I will support her if he were to step aside,' Clyburn said of Harris.