President Joe Biden’s family used a Sunday gathering at Camp David to urge him to stay in the race and keep fighting despite his dreadful debate performance, and some members criticized how his staff prepared him for the faceoff, according to four people familiar with the discussions.
Biden spent the day sequestered with first lady Jill Biden, his children and grandchildren. It was a previously scheduled trip to the presidential retreat in Maryland for a photo shoot with Annie Leibovitz for the upcoming Democratic National Convention.
But the gathering was also an exercise in trying to figure out how to quell Democratic anxiety that has exploded following Thursday’s performance.
While his family was aware of how poorly he performed against Donald Trump, they also continue to think he’s the best person to beat the Republican presumptive nominee. They also believe he is capable of doing the job of president for another four years, according to the people who were not authorized to speak publicly about internal discussions and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.
Interestingly, according to the most recent Ipsos poll where they polled different candidates against Trump, every major democratic candidate lost in the polling to Trump including Kamala (who did poll I think one point better than Biden), some by a lot…
Except Michelle Obama, who won in the polling against Trump by 11 points (50-39), i.e. by a landslide. I was pretty surprised by that.
I think it’s probably because she generally wasn’t publicly political during her husband’s Presidency, or after. She did what was expected of the First Lady, didn’t do anything too controversial, and that was about it. And there’s likely a lot of people that want Obama again, but he cannot run, but if she’s there obviously his counsel would be as well.