Joe Biden’s family is encouraging the president to stay in the 2024 race and keep fighting, offering him their “unequivocal support” during a family gathering at Camp David on Sunday, according to two Biden advisers.
The family discussions have focused on how members of the Biden clan could help the president – and not whether he should reconsider his candidacy, one of the advisers said.
Hunter Biden, the president’s son, and his grandchildren all offered their admiration and support – following first lady Jill Biden’s effusive praise in recent days.
The family members discussed whether any staff adjustments should be made in the campaign or in President Biden’s inner circle, that adviser said.
Biden was joined by his family at the presidential retreat for a long-planned photo shoot with renowned photographer Annie Leibovitz.
Senior advisers insisted to CNN on Saturday that the gathering was not aimed at discussing whether the president would remain in the race.
The shock of the CNN debate is still settling in for many, with the president and those close to him in the earliest stages of processing the immediate fallout.
The family’s view now – that Biden must keep fighting – could shift in the coming days if the downward spiral continues and if the president becomes convinced that exiting the race would be the best decision.
Biden is eagerly collecting data – anecdotal evidence and public polling – but is awaiting a broader round of Democratic campaign polling and research this week, advisers said, bracing for expected slippage.
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The opinion of Biden’s family would be crucial in determining his political future – even more so than the president’s famously insular inner circle of top advisers.
Those advisers are now under great scrutiny, with party insiders openly questioning how they allowed the president to take the stage last week to face off against Donald Trump knowing what they must have known.
The Biden team had spent nearly a full week hunkered down at Camp David, trying to prepare the president for any scenario that he might confront inside the CNN studio in Atlanta.
Angst toward some of Biden’s key staff members has started to spill out into public view. Florida attorney John Morgan, a Democratic donor, singled out senior adviser Anita Dunn and her husband, Bob Bauer, who is Biden’s personal attorney.
“Biden has for too long been fooled by the value of Anita Dunn and her husband. They need to go … TODAY,” Morgan wrote on X on Sunday.
The White House declined to comment on Morgan’s post.
