Biden campaign takes drop-out denial to Morning Joe: ‘He’s absolutely in this race’

Joe Biden’s re-election campaign chair is hoping to stamp out reports that the president is ending his campaign after a brutal week marked by several leaks from high-profile Democratic officials suggesting that his time on the trail is coming to an end.

Jen O’Malley Dillon appeared on MSNBC’s influential Morning Joe broadcast on Friday morning to declare that Biden is “absolutely” staying in the race against Donald Trump, and argued that there remains a “clear path forward” for victory despite a series of polls showing none.

“We are built for the close election that we’re in, and we see the path forward,” she said.

“I’m not here to say that this hasn’t been a tough several weeks for the campaign,” she added. “There’s no doubt that it has been, and we’ve definitely seen some slippage in support, but it has been a small movement.”

That “slippage” has included another Democratic senator asking Biden to step aside, and polling that shows Trump leading by increasing margins in seven swing states, with Biden dropping by two points since earlier this month.

Nearly two-thirds of Democratic voters also want Biden to withdraw, according to poll results from the Associated Press-NORC.

Biden, who was diagnosed with COVID-19 and is isolating in Delaware this week, still has “multiple pathways to victory,” according to Dillon.

The campaign is “not sitting with our heads in the sand” but working to get out a message that there remains strong grassroots support when he is on the campaign trail, she said.

“We know the president has to prove to the American people exactly what he believes,” Dillon said. “That he is in this to win it … and he’s the only person who has done it before.”

Dillon did not directly answer when she was asked whether there is “any chance he gets out of this race at any point.”

“You have heard from the president directly time and again,” she said. “He is in this race to win, and he is our nominee, and he’s going to be our president for a second term.”

A campaign email following Dillon’s appearance laid it out explicitly to donors: “He’s in this race and he’s in it to win it. Moreover, he’s the presumptive nominee — there is no plan for an alternative nominee. In a few short weeks, Joe Biden will be the official nominee.”

Senator Bernie Sanders, who appeared on the network immediately after Dillon, defended the president’s candidacy, arguing that “if we start focusing on his record, focusing on what he is trying to do, not only is he going to win it, he gives us a chance to win in a big way.”

Democratic officials are in a time crunch about the president’s future as delegates prepare for the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, where Biden’s formal renomination is in question.

Barack Obama has reportedly been fielding calls from concerned Democrats about his former running mate as a growing chorus of Democratic officials have publicly urged Biden to step out of the race or risk taking down other crucial down-ballot races with him.

Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has also reportedly privately warned Biden about his vanishing chances of re-election, pressing his advisers to show him polls that show significant losses in crucial battleground states that he needs to carry to win the 2024 election against Trump.

Biden’s family is also reportedly speaking with the president about what an exit plan could look like, while reports have emerged that Biden is fuming over leaks allegedly from the camps of his Democratic allies as he insists to staff and his family that his plans haven’t changed.

In his last interview before he left the campaign trail to recover from COVID, 81-year-old Biden admitted that he initially saw himself as a “transitional candidate” in 2020, “but I did not anticipate things getting so, so, so divided.”

“And quite frankly, I think, the only thing, age brings a little bit of wisdom, and I think I’ve demonstrated that I know how to get things done, for the country, in spite of the fact we’re told we couldn’t get it done,” he said. “But there’s more to do, and I’m reluctant to walk away from it.”