Is Biden Dropping Out of Race? Everything We Know

Following President Joe Biden’s poor performance in the presidential debate, many have questioned if he would consider dropping out of the 2024 race and a new report from the New York Times has increased speculation.

On Wednesday, the New York Times published a new report detailing that Biden has spoken with an ally about possibly dropping out of the 2024 race, which is shaping up to be a rematch of the 2020 race against former president Donald Trump.

The New York Times cited an anonymous source who was familiar with the situation, but Newsweek has been unable to independently verify the report.

Responding to the story on X, formerly Twitter, White House senior deputy press secretary Andrew Bates said: “That claim is absolutely false.”

“If the New York Times had provided us with more than 7 minutes to comment we would have told them so,” Bates said in the post.

The Biden campaign directed Newsweek to Bates’ quotes in the post after reaching out via email for comment.

The report from the New York Times comes amid ongoing speculation about Biden’s second run for the White House following his performance in the presidential debate against Trump.

Biden, 81, who has previously faced concerns about his age, received a wave of criticism following his debate performance. Viewers noticed that he sounded hoarse and seemed to lack energy, sometimes struggling to answer questions.

A Biden aide told Newsweek last week that the president was battling a cold during the debate. Even so, there were calls for his replacement from some Democrats.

A CNN poll following the debate found that 67 percent of viewers said Trump had won, compared with 33 percent who said Biden won.

On Tuesday, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre was asked about Biden’s debate performance and the president’s mental acuity.

“We want to turn the page on this. And we want to turn the page for the American people as well, because we know that they need to see him out there. He’s going to continue to be out there. He has been. And we understand how important that is,” she said.

While delivering a speech in Virginia earlier this week, Biden also spoke about his debate saying “I decided to travel around the world a couple of times … shortly before the debate … I didn’t listen to my staff … and then I almost fell asleep on stage,” according to a pool report from Andrew Feinberg, White House correspondent for The Independent.

“On Tuesday, Democratic Representative Lloyd Doggett publicly called for Biden to step down ahead of the 2024 election.

“President Biden has continued to run substantially behind Democratic senators in key states and in most polls has trailed Donald Trump. I had hoped that the debate would provide some momentum to change that. It did not. Instead of reassuring voters, the President failed to effectively defend his many accomplishments and expose Trump’s many lies,” Doggett said, in a statement reported by Matthew Choi of The Texas Tribune.