(Headline USA) Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., planned to call on President Joe Biden to drop out of the 2024 race last week but was bullied by other members of his party into staying silent, according to the Washington Post.
Manchin reportedly let slip that he was going to use a TV appearance on Sunday to demand that Biden abandon his reelection bid following his disastrous debate performance last month. But senior Democrats quickly formed a “full-court press” to prevent Manchin from publicly breaking with Biden, the report claimed.
“Nobody wants to be the first one to knife Julius Caesar,” one party official said of the conversations between party leaders and Manchin.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., was among those who spoke to Manchin over the weekend, though one source claimed Schumer only did so after Manchin had already decided to ditch the TV interview.
When asked about the report, Manchin senior political adviser Jonathan Kott did not deny its claims.
“Joe Manchin talks to lots of people because he wants to get different views and political perspectives,” Kott said in a statement. “When he has something to say, you’ll hear it directly from him—and trust me, there’s nobody that can talk him out of speaking his mind.”
Despite Democratic leaders’ efforts to keep the party unified around Biden, Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Texas, became the first to break from the pack this week and publicly call on Biden to step aside. Doggett specifically raised concerns that Biden’s poor polling was dragging down Democratic candidates in down-ballot races.
“President Biden has continued to run substantially behind Democratic senators in key states and in most polls has trailed Donald Trump,” he said this week. “I had hoped that the debate would provide some momentum to change that. It did not.”
