U.S. President Joe Biden vowed to stay in the 2024 U.S. presidential race during calls with campaign staff and meetings with Democratic lawmakers and governors on Wednesday, as he sought to shake off calls for him to drop out after his shaky debate performance last week.
Biden dialed in to a call with worried members of his campaign team and told them he wasn't going anywhere, according to two sources familiar with the call.
"No one is pushing me out. I'm not leaving. I'm in this race to the end," Biden said in a separate email blast by his campaign, urging supporters to "pitch in a few bucks" to help defeat his Republican rival Donald Trump in the Nov. 5 presidential election.
The president met virtually and in person with 24 Democratic governors and the mayor of Washington, D.C., on Wednesday evening to reassure them he is up to the job of standard-bearer for the party after the faltering debate performance.
Only three of the governors - the leaders of New York, Minnesota and Maryland - met with reporters afterwards, vowing to stand with Biden after what they called an honest discussion about his bad performance in last week's debate.
"The president has always had our backs. We're going to have his back as well," Maryland Governor Wes Moore said.
Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, the chair of the Democratic Governors Association, said Biden's Thursday night debate performance against former President Trump was bad, but added that he felt Biden was fit for office.
President Joe Biden speaks at a presidential debate watch party, Thursday, June 27, 2024, in Atlanta. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
Concerns about Biden's age and mental acuity exploded after Thursday's debate with Trump, in which the president mumbled under his breath, lost his train of thought at times and, at one point, talked of beating Medicare. The president has said that he was tired after two foreign trips and the White House has said he had a cold.
Asked Wednesday if Biden was considering stepping down, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said: "Absolutely not."
Soon after she spoke, two national polls suggested Biden's chances against Trump - who rattled off a series of well-worn falsehoods during the debate - had deteriorated.
A Wall Street Journal survey found Trump beating Biden by a margin of 48 per cent to 42 per cent, up one percentage point, while a New York Times and Siena poll found Trump's lead over Biden had widened by three points to 49 per cent to 43 per cent.
In a call among House Democrats on Wednesday, Arizona's Raúl Grijalva called for Biden to drop out of the race while Representative Seth Moulton from Massachusetts pointed to Biden's age as a liability.
“The unfortunate reality is that the status quo will likely deliver us President Trump,” Moulton said in a statement. "President Biden is not going to get younger.”
While the campaign has highlighted fundraising successes with grassroots donors and held damage control calls with donors, Reed Hastings, a major Democratic Party donor and a co-founder of streaming platform Netflix, called for Biden to step aside.
U.S. Vice-President Kamala Harris has meanwhile gained support as his potential replacement.
Dmitri Mehlhorn, an adviser to LinkedIn co-founder and Democratic megadonor Reid Hoffman, told Reuters his team would "enthusiastically support a ticket led by our tough and savvy vice president if Biden were to step aside for any reason."
Melhorn said Harris was the only serious national contender who had already been subjected to major attacks by Trump's "Make America Great Again" supporters.
"We would lose Joe's superpower brand, but we would gain other benefits and would still be competitive," he said.
Democrats and donors concerned about Biden's viability in the November election will be closely watching an interview with ABC News expected to be taped and aired Friday during a campaign visit to Madison, Wisconsin.
The White House said Biden has spoken with Democratic leaders in Congress as well as Democratic Representative Jim Clyburn, who was instrumental in Biden's 2020 win.
Clyburn, who has said he would back Harris as the presidential candidate if Biden stepped aside, told CNN on Wednesday that the party should hold a "mini-primary" if Biden steps aside, the first senior party member to talk publicly about how replacing Biden as a candidate could work.
Some of the governors who met with Biden on Wednesday could be potential rivals if pressure for him to step aside were to increase, but many of them also speak on Biden's behalf on the campaign trail.
Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, California Governor Gavin Newsom, Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker, Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro and Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear have all been mentioned as possible replacements to Biden.
Montreal police deployed tear gas as they dispersed a crowd of protesters participating in a pro-Palestinian demonstration after members of the group smashed windows at McGill University Friday evening.
U.S. President Joe Biden, fighting to save his endangered reelection effort, used a highly anticipated TV interview Friday to repeatedly reject taking an independent medical evaluation that would show voters he is up for serving another term in office while blaming his disastrous debate performance on a 'bad episode' and saying there were 'no indications of any serious condition.'
Canada claimed a 4-3 penalty shootout win over Venezuela on Friday to reach the Copa America semifinals for the first time after an absorbing contest finished 1-1.
The Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) may face some hurdles in collecting the money loaned through COVID-19 pandemic relief programs, like the Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB), according to a tax lawyer.
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What seemed to be a minor passport issue turned into a major problem for a New Brunswick man who was denied a boarding pass from Air Canada.
Montreal police deployed tear gas as they dispersed a crowd of protesters participating in a pro-Palestinian demonstration after members of the group smashed windows at McGill University Friday evening.
An independent report into the 2022 Rogers outage says the company lacked several protections and redundancies that could have either prevented the outage or ended it sooner.
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Opposition parties in Newfoundland and Labrador say they’re growing frustrated at the decision by health officials to move freezers of unclaimed human remains into an underground hospital parking garage.
U.S. President Joe Biden, fighting to save his endangered reelection effort, used a highly anticipated TV interview Friday to repeatedly reject taking an independent medical evaluation that would show voters he is up for serving another term in office while blaming his disastrous debate performance on a 'bad episode' and saying there were 'no indications of any serious condition.'
The Vatican has excommunicated its former ambassador to the U.S., Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, after finding him guilty of schism, an inevitable end for the firebrand conservative who became a symbol of the polarized Catholic Church in the U.S. and beyond.
A slow-moving and potentially record-setting heat wave is spreading across the Western U.S., the National Weather Service said, sending many residents in search of a cool haven from the dangerously high temperatures. The Southeast and Mid-Atlantic regions of the U.S. are also sweltering, with oppressive heat and humidity expected to last through Saturday.
The indictment of former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro for money laundering and criminal association in connection with undeclared diamonds from Saudi Arabia marked the far-right leader's second formal accusation, with more potentially in store.
The low-profile moderate Masoud Pezeshkian, who has pledged to open Iran to the world and deliver freedoms its people have yearned for, is expected to win the run-off presidential vote on Friday, an Iranian source told Reuters.
Less than a week after an Arizona man reported his wife missing, launching an expansive search that quickly turned into a criminal investigation, he admitted to killing her and pleaded guilty to murder, authorities announced Friday.
The Labour Party’s landslide win in the United Kingdom election Thursday is renewing hope that trade talks between Ottawa and London could re-start according to Canada’s High Commissioner in the U.K.
Former foreign affairs minister Marc Garneau says Canada has lost its standing in the world under the tenure of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, whom he criticizes as an ill-prepared leader who prioritizes politics and makes big pronouncements without any follow-through.
The Opposition Conservatives vowed Friday that a future Pierre Poilievre-led government would remove the man the Liberals just appointed to lead the Canadian Human Rights Commission.
Hogweed is harmful to humans and, experts say, the invasive species has become a growing problem in southern Ontario.
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Statistics Canada’s latest jobs report shows youth unemployment reached a near decade high.
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An Ottawa woman, who has survived cancer and has overcome addiction, has won $70 million with Lotto Max.
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An independent report into the 2022 Rogers outage says the company lacked several protections and redundancies that could have either prevented the outage or ended it sooner.
One person has died and another is injured after police in Woodstock, Ont. responded to multiple calls of "gunshots in the area." Around 7:30 p.m. on Thursday, police responded to Champlain Avenue between Athlone Avenue and Frontenac Crescent.
Some local producers of beer, wine, and liquor are taking a wait-and-see approach to the LCBO strike.
Norfolk County OPP are investigating an armed robbery that took place Friday morning around 7:20 a.m.
An early-morning fire closed the Cookstown Foodland grocery store on Friday.
Provincial police say a retired officer and an off-duty firefighter jumped into action to rescue a woman who had fallen into raging rapids in Minden.
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For the first time in the history of the Liquor Control Board of Ontario (LCBO), unionized staff are on strike — including about 525 workers from Windsor-Essex and Chatham-Kent. In Windsor, strikers took to three picket lines at 7:00 a.m. Friday.
Firefighters in Amherstburg put out a wheat field fire earlier this week in the midst of the crop's harvest.
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Mounties in Kelowna are warning the public after a local resident fell victim to an "elaborate" fraud last week.
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The Roman Catholic Church has been ordered to pay settlements totalling $104 million to 292 survivors of historical abuse in Newfoundland and Labrador, including those at the now infamous Mount Cashel orphanage in St. John's.
Opposition parties in Newfoundland and Labrador say they’re growing frustrated at the decision by health officials to move freezers of unclaimed human remains into an underground hospital parking garage.
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