President Joe Biden can't catch a break.
The president's hopes of counter-programming the Republican National Convention were dashed Wednesday after he learned he had contracted COVID-19, forcing him to cancel an appearance before a key Latino advocacy group.
While Biden's symptoms are mild, the diagnosis both removes him from the campaign trail and thrusts his health back into the spotlight – all at a critical moment when he is trying desperately to prove that concerns over his age and mental acuity are overblown.
Earlier Wednesday, Adam Schiff – the California congressman and Democratic candidate in that state's US Senate race – restarted the drumbeat of allies calling for Biden to exit the race, urging him to “pass the torch.”
Then came a pair of reports from ABC News and the Washington Post that Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries had warned Biden in private conversations last week about the risk his continued candidacy posed.
Biden told the leaders he was the nominee of the party and planned to win, White House spokesman Andrew Bates said in a statement. Still, both joined forces in the following days to lobby the Democratic National Committee against a July virtual roll call that would have cemented Biden's nomination and effectively terminated efforts to replace him atop the ticket.
The president stoked the melodrama even more by suggesting in a BET interview taped Tuesday that he would consider dropping out of the race if new health issues emerged. Meanwhile, Senator Bernie Sanders, a defender of the president, conceded in an interview with the New Yorker that Biden had trouble completing sentences.
Even worse, Biden's struggles played out against scenes from the GOP convention, where Republican candidate Donald Trump appeared on stage for a walk-through sporting a bandaged ear from the unsuccessful assassination attempt he survived last weekend.
Trump's defiant, fist-pumping response to the shooting proved instantly iconic, galvanizing voices of doubt within the Republican Party behind his cause. On Tuesday night, former primary foes Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis took to the stage in Milwaukee to lay out their argument for supporting Trump's candidacy.
The events contributed to a growing sense of two campaigns headed in opposite directions: one on the rise and the other in turmoil.
Public opinion polls underscore reason for Democrats to be concerned.
Nearly two-thirds of Biden's own party say he should withdraw from the race, according to an Associated Press-NORC poll released hours before Biden's Covid diagnosis. Just three in 10 Democrats are extremely or very confident in his ability to serve effectively as president.
Off the Rails
Biden had hoped to reverse those perceptions over a three-day trip that quickly flew off the rails.
The president originally planned to travel on Monday to Austin, Texas to deliver remarks marking the 60th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act at the Lyndon Baines Johnson Presidential Library. The White House had seen the address as an opportunity for Biden to link himself to previous Democratic efforts to expand protections for minorities while painting Trump as enabling new restrictions on abortion and voting rights.
But that event was scrapped in the aftermath of Saturday's shooting at the Trump rally, and a planned interview with NBC News was moved to the White House. Without the event as a backdrop, the interview devolved into a tense and combative exchange focused largely on Biden's rhetoric and questions about his age.
“Sometime come and talk to me about what we should be talking about,” Biden told NBC anchor Lester Holt at the conclusion. “OK? The issues.”
Biden resumed campaign events Tuesday with an appearance at the NAACP's national convention, but quickly bungled the centrepiece of his speech: a new proposal to cap rent increases by corporate landlords at 5% annually.
Instead, Biden appeared to struggle to read his teleprompter, eventually saying the limit would be $55.
Medical Condition
After the event, BET News released excerpts from an interview with Biden where he appeared to open the door to reconsidering his reelection bid if doctors advised it.
“If I had some medical condition that emerged, if somebody, if doctors came to me and said, you got this problem and that problem,” Biden said.
On Wednesday, things didn't improve. Biden held a call with Jeffrey Katzenberg, the Hollywood executive leading his fundraising effort, and was told that donations were drying up over concerns about his age, Semafor reported. Katzenberg subsequently issued a statement to the outlet calling it a “misread of a private meeting.”
The president then went to tape a radio interview with Univision but left it feeling unwell. A Covid test confirmed his infection and the president quickly spirited back to the Las Vegas airport to return to his home in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware.
About the only positive news for the president was that his symptoms were mild, according to the White House: a runny nose, cough, and – appropriately enough – “general malaise.”
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
