President Biden hunkered down with family at Camp David Sunday to discuss the future of his re-election campaign following his disastrous debate performance, according to a new report.
People close to Biden, 81, believe only the president and first lady Jill Biden, will determine the future of his presidency, NBC News reported, citing several top Democrat sources.
“The decision-makers are two people — it’s the president and his wife,” one of the sources told the outlet. “Anyone who doesn’t understand how deeply personal and familial this decision will be isn’t knowledgeable about the situation.”
Another source added, “The only person who has ultimate influence with him is the first lady. If she decides there should be a change of course, there will be a change of course.”
Biden’s trip to the presidential retreat in Maryland — where he spent a week preparing for last Thursday’s debate — was planned in advance, White House Senior Deputy Press Secretary Andrew Bates said Saturday.
During the 90-minute trainwreck of a debate against former President Trump, Biden often appeared vacant or slack-jawed, and on several occasions froze mid-thought, misspoke or struggled to form coherent sentences.
The octogenarian president returned to Camp David with the first lady Saturday night, joining their children and grandchildren.
But a source told NBC News that the Camp David get-together wasn’t considered a formal family meeting.
“Any discussion about the campaign is expected to be informal or an afterthought,” the source told the outlet. “No one is sitting down for a formal or determinative discussion.”
The trip to Maryland will serve as a break for Biden, who spent the weekend at posh fundraisers in the Hamptons and at New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy’s mansion.
The planned Camp David stop comes after White House aides revealed Biden has difficulty functioning outside of a six-hour window, between 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Biden is prone to absent-minded gaffes and fatigue outside of those hours or while traveling abroad, White House aides told Axios in a bizarre attempt to spin his disastrous debate performance.
Biden is scheduled to remain at Camp David until Tuesday.
Editorial boards of the New York Times and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution have both called for Biden to drop out of the race days after his debate appearance.
Leading Democrats, including former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, have been publicly circling the wagons while privately panicking over Biden’s “abysmal” debate performance.
