Democrats met behind closed doors Sunday as pressure mounted on President Biden to drop out of the race.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., held a virtual meeting with ranking Democrats on House panels Sunday afternoon.
Fox News learned that multiple Democrats on House committees expressed concerns about the viability of Biden continuing to run for re-election against former President Trump.
Fox is told the consensus among most Democrats on the call who suggested Biden should abandon the race was that the party should focus on Vice President Kamala Harris as a potential successor.
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President Biden has faced increasing pressure to step aside in the 2024 race. (Getty Images)
Which Democrats called for Biden to bow out, or what their level of apprehension about the current president continuing his run for a second term remains unclear.
The meeting was proposed after Biden’s 22-minute interview with ABC News on Friday, which the Biden campaign hoped would ease fears that the president doesn’t have what it takes to continue the campaign and defeat former President Donald Trump.
Instead, the interview set off a new round of fears among Democrats who were already concerned by Biden’s disastrous debate performance.
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House Minority Speaker Hakeem Jeffries called a virtual meeting with ranking Democratic House Committee members to discuss President Biden. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)
“Look, Biden looked better and certainly more coherent than he looked during the debate, but there’s nothing in this interview that is calming the nerves of jittery Democrats who fear that Joe Biden is on a trajectory to lose this race, to lose to Donald Trump,” ABC News chief Washington correspondent Jonathan Karl said after the interview.
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Biden, however, struck a defiant tone, saying at one point that he would not drop out unless “the Lord Almighty were to come down and say, ‘Joe, get outta the race.'”
Fox News Digital’s Landon Mion contributed to this report.
