Summary
As a historic week in American politics comes to a close, the number of Democrats calling on Biden to end his campaign is growing, and rumors of an Biden exit from the 2024 election continue to swirl. Here is the latest you need to know going into the weekend.
Biden’s physician issued a statement that the president’s Covid symptoms are easing as he isolates in Delaware. He is taking the anti-viral drug Paxlovid and “continues to tolerate treatment well,” the statement said.
More House Democrats have called on Biden to exit the 2024 race on Friday afternoon, the latest being Betty McCollum of Minnesota, Kathy Castor of Florida, Gabe Vasquez of New Mexico, and Morgan McGarvey of Kentucky.
Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio also called on Biden to end his campaign in a statement released Friday.
Seth Moulton, a Massachusetts representative who previously called on Biden to exit the race, published an Op-Ed in the Boston Globe Friday further explaining how he came to that conclusion. He said Biden, whom he considers a friend and mentor, did not recognize him at a recent event and that due to Biden’s apparent health decline and the high stakes of the election, it is best for the president to step down.
In a meeting on Friday, Democratic officials pressed members of the Democratic national convention’s rules committee to move ahead with a virtual roll call vote ahead of the party’s August convention. Some democrats oppose the virtual nomination, seeing it as a means to push Biden’s nomination through before he can be pushed out by mounting political pressure. The rules committee would hold another meeting later this month to decide on whether to adopt a virtual roll call vote.
The White House issued a statement on the CrowdStrike outage, which has caused major technology disruptions globally on Friday. Biden will “continue to receive updates on the CrowdStrike global tech outage” and is “in regular contact with CrowdStrike’s executive leadership and tracking progress on remediating affected systems”.
Updated
Gabe Vasquez, a New Mexico representative, calls on Biden to end campaign
Political publication Punchbowl is reporting that Gabe Vasquez, a New Mexico representative, has joined the ranks of Democratic party members calling on Biden to step aside for the November election.
As of 1:51pm PT, Reuters counted that 32 of the 264 Democrats in Congress had openly called for Biden to end his campaign, while others continue to pressure the president behind the scenes.
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