Biden Battles COVID and Democrats as Crisis Grows

President Joe Biden walks down the steps of Air Force One at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, Wednesday, July 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)
President Joe Biden walks down the steps of Air Force One at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, Wednesday, July 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)
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Biden Battles COVID and Democrats as Crisis Grows

President Joe Biden walks down the steps of Air Force One at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, Wednesday, July 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)
President Joe Biden walks down the steps of Air Force One at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware, Wednesday, July 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

Joe Biden holed up at his beach house Thursday, battling both a bout of COVID and calls by senior allies for him to abandon his 2024 reelection bid.

While rival Donald Trump prepared for his star turn at the Republican National Convention, the 81-year-old US president found himself in both personal and political isolation.

The top Democrats in Congress, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, both reportedly met with Biden in recent days to warn that his candidacy threatens his party's prospects in November's election.

Influential former House speaker Nancy Pelosi added to his woes by privately telling Biden he cannot win and could harm Democrats' chances of recapturing the lower chamber, CNN reported.

Several party figures were meanwhile quoted anonymously by the Axios news outlet as saying that they believed the pressure would persuade Biden to drop out as soon as this weekend.

Biden has insisted he is not backing down, adamant that he is the candidate who beat Trump before and will do it again this year. Pressed about reports that Biden might be softening to the idea of leaving the race, his deputy campaign manager Quentin Fulks said Thursday: “He is not wavering on anything.”

"He's staying in the race," Fulks told a press conference on the sidelines of the Republican convention in Milwaukee.

"Our campaign is not working through any scenarios where President Biden is not the top of the ticket -- he is and will be the Democratic nominee."

California Senator Alex Padilla said Biden was "not skipping a beat."

"I know having spoken to him personally he's committed to the campaign," he added.

Using mountains of data showing Biden’s standing could wipe out the ranks of Democrats in Congress, frank conversations in public and private, and now, the president’s own time off the campaign trail after testing positive for COVID-19, many Democrats see an opportunity to encourage a reassessment.

Biden told reporters on Wednesday that he was "doing well."

His COVID diagnosis however came at the worst possible time for his campaign, forcing him to cut short a trip to Las Vegas and isolate at his holiday home in Rehoboth, Delaware.

The split-screen with Trump could not have been more stark, with Trump set to formally accept the Republican nomination in Milwaukee.

US networks showed images of frail looking Biden gingerly descending the steps of Air Force One in Delaware, in a week when Trump is lauded by supporters each night at a packed party convention.

Former president Trump, who at 78 is just three years younger than Biden, is riding a wave of support from his party after surviving an assassination attempt on Saturday that left him with a bandaged ear.

The United States could now be approaching the climax of an extraordinary three weeks in politics, which started when Biden gave a disastrous performance during a televised debate with Trump.

Biden blamed jet lag and a cold, but the fact that America's commander-in-chief has now fallen ill for a second time just as fears grow about his fitness for the job has merely intensified the panic in Democratic ranks.



Biden, Harris Seek 'Full Accountability' after Killing of US Citizen in West Bank

US President Joe Biden (C-R) and Democratic Presidential nominee and Vice President Kamala Harris (C-L) participate in a wreath laying ceremony on observance of the 23rd anniversary of the 9/11 terror attack at the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, USA, 11 September 2024. EPA/SHAWN THEW
US President Joe Biden (C-R) and Democratic Presidential nominee and Vice President Kamala Harris (C-L) participate in a wreath laying ceremony on observance of the 23rd anniversary of the 9/11 terror attack at the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, USA, 11 September 2024. EPA/SHAWN THEW
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Biden, Harris Seek 'Full Accountability' after Killing of US Citizen in West Bank

US President Joe Biden (C-R) and Democratic Presidential nominee and Vice President Kamala Harris (C-L) participate in a wreath laying ceremony on observance of the 23rd anniversary of the 9/11 terror attack at the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, USA, 11 September 2024. EPA/SHAWN THEW
US President Joe Biden (C-R) and Democratic Presidential nominee and Vice President Kamala Harris (C-L) participate in a wreath laying ceremony on observance of the 23rd anniversary of the 9/11 terror attack at the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, USA, 11 September 2024. EPA/SHAWN THEW

US President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris on Wednesday called the Israeli military's killing of an American activist in the Israeli-occupied West Bank "unacceptable" and said Israel must do more to make sure it never happens again.

Israel has taken responsibility for the death of Aysenur Ezgi Eygi, 26, who was killed while taking part in a protest against settlement expansion in the West Bank. Biden said the US government expects continued access to the criminal investigation into the shooting.
"There must be full accountability. And Israel must do more to ensure that incidents like this never happen again," Biden said in a statement.
Harris said in a separate statement that no one should be killed for participating in a peaceful protest.
"The shooting that led to her death is unacceptable and raises legitimate questions about the conduct of IDF (Israel Defense Forces) personnel in the West Bank," she said.
Eygi, who is also a Turkish national, was shot dead on Friday at a protest march in Beita, a village near Nablus where Palestinians have been repeatedly attacked by far-right Jewish settlers. Israel has said her death was accidental.

For her 26th birthday in July, Eygi gathered friends for a bonfire at one of her favorite places, a sandy beach in Seattle where green-and-white ferries cruise across the dark, flat water and osprey fish overhead.

On Wednesday night, hundreds of people traveled to the same beach in grief, love and anger to mourn her.

As the sun set, turning the sky on the horizon a pale orange, friends recalled Eygi as open, engaging, funny and devoted. The crowd spilled beyond a large rectangle of small black, red, green and white Palestinian flags staked in the sand to mark the venue for the vigil.
Many attendees wore traditional checked scarves — keffiyehs — in support of the Palestinian cause and carried photographs of Eygi in her graduation cap. They laid roses, sunflowers or carnations at a memorial where battery-operated candles spelled out her name in the sand.

Eygi's relatives called on Biden and Harris to speak to the family directly and order an independent investigation into her shooting.
To call her death an accident "is complicity in the Israeli military’s agenda to take Palestinian land and whitewash the killing of an American. ... Let us be clear, an American citizen was killed by a foreign military in a targeted attack," the family said in a statement.
Democratic US Senator Patty Murray and Representative Pramila Jayapal wrote a letter to Biden on Wednesday and requested "an immediate, transparent, credible and thorough" independent US investigation.