Hakeem Jeffries met with Joe Biden after week of turmoil on Capitol Hill
WASHINGTON – House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., met with President Joe Biden in a private meeting Thursday night.
Jeffries sent a letter to House Democrats Friday morning telling them he requested the meeting, which took place after the president's high-stakes press conference at the North Atlantic Treaty Organization summit.
"In my conversation with President Biden, I directly expressed the full breadth of insight, heartfelt perspectives and conclusions about the path forward that the Caucus has shared in our recent time together," he wrote.
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Jeffries has been working to have conversations with each House Democrat since Monday, as well as smaller factions within his caucus, to take the temperature of members on the all-consuming issue of whether Biden is capable of representing Democrats on the presidential ticket following a debate performance marked by repeated stumbles.
Jeffries did not say in the letter whether he asked Biden to leave the presidential race, which Biden has repeatedly said he does not plan to do.
Jeffries concluded by writing: "As House Democrats have done throughout this Congress, we will continue to work in the best interests of everyday Americans."
Seventeen House Democrats and one Senate Democrat have so far called for Biden to leave the race and allow another Democrat to take his place in the hopes that they would be better equipped to beat former President Donald Trump. However, several more have privately expressed concerns.
Those speaking out to ask Biden to step aside have argued that Trump poses an existential threat to American democracy, and that the stakes are too high to gamble on a candidate who polling indicates no longer has the support of a majority of Democratic voters