House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) met with President Biden on Thursday night after an emotional week in which House Democrats failed to reach a definitive public consensus on whether their party’s leader should run for a second term.
The meeting, which came after Biden’s much-anticipated press conference, marks a defining moment for Jeffries, who has been the top Democrat in the House of Representatives for just a year and a half.
Along with other congressional leaders, Jeffries has gone toe-to-toe with Biden at key moments: during negotiations on how to prevent a collapse of the debt ceiling and while sending crucial aid to foreign allies — and incidentally at House Democratic retreats. But the future Speaker of the House has never spoken to the president about the sensitive and potentially important issue of whether House Democrats believe Biden can defeat former President Donald Trump in November.
Jeffries disclosed the meeting in a letter he sent to House Democrats Friday morning. The letter follows a week in which he listened intently to all factions of a diverse caucus before giving his assessment to Biden.
“On behalf of the House Democratic Caucus, I requested and was granted a private meeting with President Joe Biden,” Jeffries said in the letter. “In my conversation with President Biden, I directly expressed the full breadth of insight, candid perspectives, and conclusions about the path forward that the Caucus has shared in our recent time together.”
But Jeffries gave no further details or said publicly what kind of message he had delivered to the president, an omission his office said was intentional. He has previously privately endorsed Biden but has not made any statement on where Democrats stand in the House of Representatives.
“The letter that Leader Hakeem Jeffries sent to his Democratic colleagues in the House speaks for itself. It was a private conversation that will remain private,” said Christie Stephenson, Jeffries’ communications director.
But concerns on Capitol Hill from all corners of an often volatile caucus grew throughout the week, as even some of Biden’s most ardent defenders expressed doubts about his ability to win reelection. Publicly and privately, there was widespread panic among politically vulnerable members about what some saw as the inevitability of their ship sinking with Biden in November.
Michael Tyler, the Biden campaign’s communications director, also told reporters Friday that he would not provide an account of the private conversation. But he said he believes “leader Jeffries and others have made it clear that they continue to stand with the president” and that they “understand the president is on board.”
Meanwhile, Biden met virtually with members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus on Friday afternoon. During that meeting, Democratic Rep. Mike Levin, who represents a swing district in California, asked Biden to step aside “for the good of his constituents and the country” after hearing concerns from his constituents, according to three people familiar with the conversation.
Biden responded by saying he understands the concerns many have about his age and why he needs to prove himself to lawmakers and the public.
“That’s why I’m going to go out there and let people touch me, poke me, ask me questions,” Biden said, according to a person familiar with his remarks. “It’s a legitimate concern for people, but that’s why I think it’s important that I go out there and show people everything from how well I move to how much I know, and that I’m still in charge.”
Jeffries has said publicly that he supports the president. He has not worked with former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and has not publicly repeated that. Pelosi told “Morning Joe” this week that it was Biden’s “decision” whether to run again, despite the president making it clear that he had already decided to continue his campaign.
Notably, Rep. James E. Clyburn (S.C.), one of the most respected Democrats in the House whose support proved crucial to Biden’s 2020 campaign, said Friday on NBC’s “Today” show that he enthusiastically supports the president and called on Democrats to focus on touting the accomplishments of the Biden-Harris administration. But he notably left the door open to a potential top-tier change, such as Pelosi.
“If he decides later on to change his mind, then we will respond to that,” Clyburn said. “We have until August 19th to open our convention. And so I hope we spend our time now on the report that we want to put before the American people.”
Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Biden had not spoken as of Friday morning since their sole phone call last week, according to a person familiar with the matter.
Several lawmakers and aides who attended several meetings Jeffries held this week painted a grim picture of Biden’s position. The same widespread concerns were echoed in those meetings, and were echoed not only by Jeffries but also by his lieutenants — Minority Whip Katherine Clark (D-Mass.) and Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar (D-Calif.).
During several of those meetings, Jeffries told lawmakers he would listen and ultimately relay their views to Biden, according to two people familiar with the comments.
By Friday afternoon, 21 Democrats in the House of Representatives had called on Biden to withdraw from the fight, and cited several reasons why they believe their party leader is too weak to defeat Trump in November. One senator — Pete Welch (D-Vt.) — made the same argument.
Of those 21, only five spoke out against Biden after his closely watched news conference Thursday night, a move Hill Democrats had been signaling all week would serve as a barometer for whether they would speak out publicly.
The handful of public opponents of the 264 Democrats in the House of Representatives is relatively small and — as of Friday afternoon — certainly not equal to the flood of lawmakers, some of whom privately predicted would call for Biden’s ouster after Friday’s NATO summit.
But the small numbers in public obscure the significantly higher number of House Democrats who remain deeply concerned that Biden and his campaign have no chance of winning, according to multiple House Democrats and aides familiar with the concerns.
That fear reflects widespread panic that the president’s continued presence at the top of the ticket could seriously damage House Democrats’ chances of regaining the majority. Jeffries had high hopes for the Speaker’s seat, as Democrats need to gain only four net seats to regain the majority.
Now that the NATO summit is over, Biden and his campaign are expanding their outreach to key Democratic constituencies. Biden will have met with the CHC, the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus and the Congressional Progressive Caucus on Friday and Saturday afternoon.
“Does there remain fears? Yes. We understand that. The president understands that. That’s why we continue to engage with people on Capitol Hill,” Tyler said Friday aboard Air Force One.
One thing seems clear: House Democrats are divided on a path forward, divided over the extent to which they define the moment as bigger than Biden. Those overwhelmingly concerned about his electability say privately that the president must recognize that preserving democracy and ensuring that Trump does not retake the White House transcend his personal ambitions. Those fervently in Biden’s corner say Democrats must unite around him immediately to avoid losing sight of defeating Trump and his agenda.
Jeffries and other lawmakers are digesting recent national polls and their own internal campaign data, according to several lawmakers and aides, who like others asked not to be identified. to discuss private considerations.
Sentiment among Democrats in the House of Representatives fluctuated from day to day this week, depending on the caucus.
But a telling shift occurred midweek as Biden’s support began to crumble within the CBC, a group of about 60 members known as the “conscience of Congress” and seen as the backbone of his support. The concerns, echoing those of other lawmakers, centered on pushing Biden’s job to make staffing changes aimed at better listening to lawmakers about how best to message voters in their districts — and ensuring the president doesn’t lose support in crucial states.
While the CBC’s general support for Biden wasn’t shared by all members of the group, it also tested Jeffries, who as a CBC member has a huge amount of respect for the group.
House Democrats met behind closed doors for nearly two hours Tuesday morning in a conversation that multiple people familiar with the matter described as somber, candid and emotional. Opinions ranged from urging the party to come together or risk appearing unable to govern to serious concerns about its chances of regaining the majority with Biden as their running mate.
No consensus emerged in that meeting, nor when members left Washington on Thursday. But several lawmakers and others familiar with their thinking privately described a political paralysis that might not be broken anytime soon.
That stagnation continued on Friday, long after Biden’s press conference, where he showed flexibility in his foreign policy but also made some verbal blunders.
The paralysis, one lawmaker said, felt like Democrats were “marching to their deaths,” believing it was inevitable that Biden would lose to Trump.
Support within the Hispanic faction, which includes 42 lawmakers, has remained fluid. Only Reps. Raúl Grijalva (D-Ariz.), Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D-Wash.) and now Levin have said Biden will lose if he stays in the race. There is a divide between those who openly support Biden, those who say they will continue to observe the president on the campaign trail before passing judgment, and those who have not spoken publicly.
Jeffries held two meetings this week with Democrats in competitive seats that were incredibly hard on Biden. The meetings were described as intense and frank, according to multiple people familiar with them. Members were unequivocal that Biden should step aside or ultimately jeopardize their reelection chances and potentially prevent Jeffries from becoming speaker in a Democratic House.
Some argued that they would automatically be better off politically if Vice President Harris became the nominee, because she would immediately resolve the age issue and help Democrats refocus on Trump.
Jeffries also met with the leadership team of the New Democratic Coalition, which represents nearly 100 pragmatic liberal and moderate Democrats, who expressed concern that deep divisions were undermining the party itself and its efforts to defeat Trump. The team urged the minority leader to shift the focus back to Trump ahead of the GOP convention in Milwaukee that begins Sunday.
