Biden campaign issues memo demanding Dems stop complaining to the press about him: report

On Thursday, the Biden campaign asked Democratic lawmakers and insiders to stop criticizing President Biden in the press, asserting that Biden will remain the Party's nominee based on claims that he is the only one who can defeat former President Donald J. Trump, citing current polling numbers, according to a memo obtained by CBS News reporter Ed O'Keefe. 

The memo sent to staff that will be distributed to Democrat senators urged Party members to refocus their attention on Project 25, a conservative coalition's plan that has been publicly disavowed by Trump. This comes after several prominent Democrat donors and lawmakers, including actor George Clooney and Disney heiress Abigail Disney, called on President Biden, 81, to quit his re-election campaign following his dismal debate performance, which brought concerns that he is no longer cognitively capable of leading the country or defeating Trump in November. 

The Biden campaign wrote in the memo, "There is also no indication that anyone else would outperform the president vs. Trump. Hypothetical polling of alternative nominees will always be unreliable, and surveys do not take into account the negative media environment that any Democratic nominee will encounter. The only Democratic candidate for whom this is already baked in is President Biden." 

O'Keefe reported on the memo, "The campaign all-but begs Democrats to stop the hand-wringing and op-ed writing" to the press. The memo said, "Next week, Donald Trump and Republicans will hold their convention in Milwaukee, once again putting their extreme Project 2025 agenda front and center for voters. It will be a key moment, and all of us - from President Biden on down - must do our part to take advantage of the opportunity. The surest way to help Donald Trump is to spend his convention talking about our nominating process instead of the MAGA extremism that will be on stage in Milwaukee."

The Biden campaign admitted to post-debate issues but asserted that Biden would remain the candidate. "Our internal data and public polling show the same thing: this remains a margin-of-error race in key battleground states," the campaign said. 

Adding, there's "not a sea-change in the state of the race - while some of this movement was from undecided voters to Trump, much of the movement was driven by historically Democratic constituencies moving to undecided. These voters do not like Donald Trump. In internal polling, our post-debate net favorability is 20 percentage points higher than Trump's among these voters." 



The Democratic Party has been scrambling to determine what comes next in the election since Biden took the debate stage against former President Trump last month. Democrat megadonors have paused funding to the president's campaign, and there have been mass calls for Biden to drop out of the race. A few days ago, prominent Democrat advisors fronted the idea of a "blitz primary" election before the DNC convention in August. Many Democrats want Biden out, but the president has vowed that he will be staying in the race.