Joe Biden has one more chance to quiet the growing calls for him to drop out of the 2024 race and reverse the momentum that is carrying him and his party to disaster.
Biden will hold a late afternoon press conference at 6:30 p.m. on Thursday following the wrap-up of the NATO meeting in Washington. He can't hold the presser in prime time because he promised the governors he met with in D.C. last week that he would no longer hold campaign events after 8 p.m.
This means that if we're ever attacked, we must ensure the enemy knows our president needs his sleep and can't be disturbed after 8 p.m.
The stakes couldn't be higher. It's Biden's first solo presser since last November, although he has taken part in several joint press conferences after meeting various world leaders. Those are highly scripted affairs, with the president answering only two or three questions.
While Biden's position in the polls hasn't completely collapsed, his political position in Washington has gotten very dicey. Former Speaker Nancy Pelosi, when asked on MSNBC whether she still supported Biden, said it was "up to the president to decide if he is going to run" and that she wants him to "do whatever he decides to do."
Not exactly a ringing endorsement.
Related: Biden Team Trying to Head Off Delegate Revolt at the Convention
Meanwhile, while publicly backing Biden, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has privately expressed grave reservations about the president's fitness to his colleagues.
The high-stakes moment is an opportunity for Biden to change the narrative after his poor debate performance triggered a drumbeat of concerns in his own party that he might be too weakened to win against Donald Trump this November.
But any stumbles in the unscripted setting could add fuel to the fire, despite Biden's repeated attempts to rebuff his critics and his insistence that he is staying in the race.
Many Democrats have said they need to see Biden clearly answer questions without faltering or losing his train of thought -- what so alarmed them about his debate showing with Trump two weeks ago.
It's a surreal situation in Washington. The professional politicians know that if Biden exits the race, there will be a free-for-all at the convention and a likely bloodbath as party divisions, suppressed during the Biden years, come to the fore once again.
But those same politicians have been talking to their constituents and reading the polls. And as Colorado Sen. Michael Bennet pointed out, a wounded Biden could hand Trump and the Republicans a landslide victory in November. Trump has even begun planning for a landslide win.
A Democratic Party massacre in 2024 is growing closer to reality. But Democratic lawmakers are hesitating to take the long walk off a short plank and publicly back a Biden exit.
The deepening crisis gripping the Democratic Party is not simply damaging Biden’s chances of clinging to the nomination. It is also offering Trump and Republicans a bottomless source of attack ads against Biden if he’s confirmed as the nominee. Individual candidates can also expect to be skewered over why they are supporting a party figurehead who many Democrats have declared is unfit to serve a second term that would end when he is 86. And two weeks of agonizing over Biden’s age and mental faculties, combined with a clumsy mitigation effort by the White House and the campaign, have taken the heat off Trump and deprived Democrats of the comparison with the ex-president’s lawlessness and volatility that many had originally believed would help Biden hold the White House.
The Democrats could have avoided all this if Biden had stepped away from the race last year. But pride goeth before the fall, and Biden's arrogance blinded him to the reality of his deteriorating condition.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member