Biden campaign manager Jen O’Malley Dillon insisted Friday on MSNBC’s Morning Joe that the president is staying in the race against all odds.
“He’s our nominee and he’s going to be our president for a second term,” she said. She acknowledged “this has been such a hard week” for the campaign but insisted that Biden, who is sick with COVID, will be “back on the trail next week.”
“This is an organization built for the Biden-Harris ticket,” she said, underscoring Vice President Kamala Harris’ prominence in a campaign that many Democrats, including powerful donors, would like to end as soon as possible.
In light of the uncertainty about Biden’s ability to continue with his re-election bid, host Mika Brzezinski asked Dillon right out of the gate: “Is Joe Biden still in the race? Does he plan to stay in the race? And if so, what’s the plan?”
“Absolutely, the president’s in this race,” Dillon answered. “You’ve heard him say that time and time again.” She went on to claim that Donald Trump’s performance at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee on Thursday night demonstrated he’s “the same person he was in 2020.”
“Joe Biden is more committed than ever to beat Donald Trump,” Dillon said. “And we believe on this campaign we are built for the close election that we’re in, and we see the path forward. “The president is the leader of our campaign and of the country and he is clearly—in our impression and what we’ve built, and in our engagement with voters—he is the best person to take on Donald Trump, and prosecute that case and present his vision versus what we saw last night.”
Host Joe Scarborough followed up asking what Dillon’s message is to Democrats “who say [Biden] can’t win” and that there are better candidates to take on Trump.
“I’m not here to say that this hasn’t been a tough several weeks for the campaign,” Dillon answered, apparently referring to the crisis of confidence in Biden’s ability to win triggered by his disastrous debate performance. “There’s no doubt that it has been. And we’ve definitely seen some slippage in support, but it has been a small movement—and you know this, the reason is because so much of this race has hardened already.”
Dillon later claimed the campaign has “multiple pathways to victory” and contrasted the way the two candidates are viewed. “More and more people see Donald Trump, they dislike him, they remember why he is such a threat to this country,” she said. “The more and more people that see Joe Biden out there post-debate, they are reassured that he is in it to win it, and he can do that.”
The bullish comments come as Democrat lawmakers publicly call on Biden to drop out, while senior party figures have not denied reports suggesting they’ve advised the president to give up on his campaign. One report Thursday cited top Dems saying the president could drop out of the race as soon as this weekend, but Biden’s campaign pushed back on the claim.
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