By EFE
21 Jul 2024, 13:31 PM EDT
President Joe Biden faced renewed pressure from the Democratic Party to abandon his campaign for re-election in November, while his rival, Republican Donald Trump, significantly hardened his tone, taking advantage of his weakness.
Biden, still isolated at home recovering from Covid-19, was overshadowed by Vice President Kamala Harris, who attended a fundraiser in Massachusetts alone with elected officials and celebrities and raised more than $2 million, according to journalists who follow her.
Harris, who many critics see as a potential successor to Biden, said in her speech that “in every decision he makes in the Oval Office,” the president thinks of the working class, and expressed her hope for the duo they form: “We are going to win. It won’t be easy, you have to believe in something and go for it.”
However, new names have been added to the thirty Democrats in Congress who are calling on the president to give up on his electoral efforts, such as California legislator Mark Takano, who revealed his support for Harris as his replacement.
Progressive Senator Elizabeth Warren, for her part, acknowledged on MSNBC that Biden has a “decision to make” and praised Harris’ experience as a prosecutor in facing a “convicted criminal,” in reference to Trump.
Separately, according to CNN, the White House received a letter on Friday from more than 50 former senior officials from different administrations, including in foreign policy and national security positions, urging Biden to “pass the mantle of leadership.”
And according to NBC, Biden’s family has had conversations about a possible end to the campaign, emphasizing that if he does end up stepping down, it should leave his party in a position to beat Trump and honor the more than five decades he has dedicated to serving the country in different capacities.
Trump hardens tone taking advantage of the crisis
Meanwhile, Trump, now the official Republican candidate, abandoned moderation at a rally in Michigan where he called Biden “weak,” “sick,” and even “stupid,” saying that he would “never talk like that about a president” and justifying it by saying that the president has “turned justice into a weapon” against him.
The former president took the opportunity to joke about the crisis in Biden’s presidential candidacy, reiterated his unfounded allegations of fraud in the previous elections and addressed his main campaign points, with the most praised being his plan to carry out “the largest deportation of immigrants” in history.
The rally generated great expectations as it was the first since his attempted assassination last Saturday – he was now only wearing discreet band-aids on his injured ear – and included his ‘number two’, JD Vance, after his consecration as the Republican candidate at his party’s convention.
Vance, who kept a low profile at the event, urged Biden to resign on X and criticized the “absurd level of cynicism” of those who are only asking him to abandon the idea of re-election, since “if he can’t run (for president), he can’t serve (as such) either.”
Following Trump’s rally, a Biden-Harris campaign spokesman said Trump had gone from advocating unity to being “the same Donald” who utters “lies,” seeks “revenge and retribution” and thinks “of himself,” and again linked him to the “2025 Project,” which the Republican called “extremist.”
Biden’s campaign, which reiterated that it will soon be up and running, did not say where it might reappear, but did say that it will probably continue to focus on key states such as Nevada, Arizona, Georgia and North Carolina, as well as the so-called “blue wall” states: Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan.
Keep reading:
- Joe Biden with Covid: they say which variant is affecting the president
- More Democratic congressmen demand Joe Biden end his candidacy
- Biden shows significant improvement, but still has Covid symptoms: doctor