“The conversation should focus on the record of this administration, on the alternative to his election and let Joe Biden continue to make his own decisions about his future,” said Clyburn, a staunch ally of the president. “He’s earned that right, and I am going to give him that much respect.”
The comments a day after Biden participated in a high-stakes news conference echo those that former House speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) made earlier this week when she did not directly call for Biden to step aside but subtly reframed the discussion. She indicated that, despite Biden’s insistence, the matter of his candidacy was not settled.
“It’s up to the president to decide if he is going to run. We’re all encouraging him to make that decision, because time is running short,” Pelosi said.
In the two weeks since Biden’s poor performance in the first general election debate raised concerns over the president’s mental acuity, health and stamina, at least 20 Democratic lawmakers have called for Biden to step aside as the party’s nominee. But Clyburn said his caucus’s focus should be on making the case for the Biden-Harris ticket to be reelected.
“If he decides to change his mind later on, then we will respond to that,” Clyburn said. “We have until the 19th of August to open our convention. And so I would hope we’d spend our time now focusing on the record we would lay out for the American people.”
As he approaches age 84, Clyburn acknowledged that he, too, was not physically the man he was four years ago. But he said that despite concerns about his acuity, Biden is still “grasping what this country is all about. He knows what a democracy is all about.”
Clyburn is a member of the Congressional Black Caucus — a crucial bloc of roughly 60 House Democrats seemingly divided over whether to publicly embrace the president, even as some Black House Democrats have started to voice private concerns about Biden’s electability and the potential downstream effects on vulnerable lawmakers running in swing districts, The Post has previously reported.
Asked if he would endorse Vice President Harris if Biden steps aside, he reiterated his full-throated support: “Absolutely!”
