Biden’s ally Chris Coons backtracks on comments that the president is “weighing” which candidate is best to beat Trump

Senator Chris Coons (D-DE), a longtime confidant of President Joe Biden, suggested on Friday that the president was considering dropping out of the race – but walked back his remark hours later.

Coons’ comments came on a day when Biden’s candidacy was further cast into doubt as the number of incumbent Democrats calling on him to end his campaign rose to 30.

“This is an internal party matter and a campaign matter that is being played out very publicly,” Coons told the Aspen Security Forum on Friday. “I think our president is weighing what he should be weighing, which is who is the best candidate to win in November and advance the values ​​and priorities of the Democratic Party in this campaign.”

A short time later, Coons made an apparent backtracking statement on social media.

“I fully support the President. He told me he is in it to win,” the Delaware senator posted on X. “I’m 100% behind him because I know he can beat Trump just like he did last time.”

In his opening remarks, Coons, who is national co-chair of Biden’s re-election campaign, touted the president’s performance at last week’s NATO summit as evidence that he remains physically and mentally fit for the demands of the office. But he referred to the president only as the Democratic Party’s “likely nominee” – a designation that seems to acknowledge the possibility that Biden might heed the growing chorus of Democratic politicians calling for his resignation.

In his remarks, Coons said he was “confident” that Biden is “hearing what he needs to hear from his colleagues and the public” and acknowledged that there is “great concern and fear about this because so much is at stake.”

He added: “The differences between our two candidates – our likely candidate Joe Biden (and) the (Republican) candidate Donald Trump … the one thing that all the Democrats I’ve heard from have in common is that they believe Donald Trump should not return to the White House.”

Coons added in a moment of levity that he’s heard from “roommates, ex-girlfriends, people I didn’t know still had my cell phone number” when it came to people voicing their opinions and concerns.

Biden has resisted pressure from Democratic Party power brokers and political observers who believe his poor performance in last month’s debate with former President Donald Trump showed he is too old to run for re-election. Biden reportedly rejected private calls from Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) to step down, but his refusal was met with growing public pressure.

“While the decision to withdraw from the campaign rests solely with President Biden, I believe it is in the best interest of our country for him to step down,” Senator Martin Heinrich (D-NM) said Friday morning. “By passing the torch, he would secure his legacy as one of our nation’s greatest leaders and allow us to unite behind a candidate who is best able to defeat Donald Trump and secure the future of our democracy.”

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Despite his stated belief that Trump’s return to the White House would have devastating “consequences,” Coons signaled to the audience of foreign policy and security experts that Congress could keep U.S. foreign policy on track no matter what.

“Concerned Americans need to be reassured that there are strong bipartisan relationships in the Senate,” he said. “It’s important that people realize that the Senate is a center of stability, particularly on national security and foreign policy. … Figuring out how we can continually focus on fundamental issues of our values ​​and stability and our democracy, independent of the president, is, I think, the job that the Founding Fathers envisioned for the Senate.”