First, there were cautious public appearances, without accepting questions from the press and with speeches supported with teleprompter. Then came the interview with ABC in an unsuccessful attempt to appease doubts. After that, conversations with governors and party leaders to convince and calm them down. Until this Monday, July 8th, 10 days after the debate on CNN against Donald Trump that almost sank his candidacy, Joe Biden went on the offensive and directly confronted Democratic Party leaders using a challenging speech.
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This week had been defined as key by some Democrats for the continuity or resignation of Biden’s candidacy, and the president seems to have taken a more aggressive tone to dispel doubts.
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For that, Biden and his campaign used two almost parallel paths during Monday morning: a two-page letter where he asked to end the questioning and an interview on an MSNBC program where he told the Democrats who are asking him to withdraw from the candidacy to challenge him at the party's convention.
The letter: “It’s time for it to end”
At around 9 am, on Joe Biden's account on social media platform X, the letter that the president sent to the members of his party was made public.
He said he was “firmly committed to staying in this race, to running this race to the end.”; that he was convinced he could beat Trump; that he had spoken with party members and Democratic voters, and that 14 million had voted for him in the primaries.
In the final paragraph, in an attempt to put an end to the questioning, he wrote: “The question of how to move forward has been well-aired for over a week now. And it’s time for it to end. We have one job. And that is to beat Donald Trump. We have 42 days to the Democratic Convention and 119 days to the general election...It is time to come together, move forward as a unified party, and defeat Donald Trump.”
The interview: "Compete against me, challenge me at the Convention"
While the fourth established that he is not even close to resigning as a candidate and left the party with little room to seek an alternative, in an interview with the program "Morning Joe" from MSNBC, Biden hardened his tone to levels that had not been seen before, challenging the party leadership and Democratic representatives.
The interview time? 9:36 am, almost at the same time the letter was issued. The presenter Mika Brzezinski said "the president is calling".
In a phone conversation that lasted 18 minutes, Biden said, “I’m getting so frustrated by the elites in the party,” and then finished with the most challenging phrase against the top of the Democrats and against some representatives who have called for him to withdraw his candidacy: “Any of these guys that don’t think I should run, run against me. Announce for president, challenge me at the convention.”
Biden also resorted to an old strategy, portraying himself as the candidate of the Democratic base and not of the “elites.” In the letter, he highlighted his high vote count in the primaries and in an interview with Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough, he said, “I’m not getting any of what I was told. I wanted to make sure I was right, that the average voter out there still wanted Joe Biden,” and when asked about important figures in the Democratic Party who want him to drop out of the campaign, he replied, “They’re big names, but I don’t care what those big names think. They were wrong in 2020. They were wrong in 2022 about the red wave. They were wrong in 2024.”