The campaign staff of second-term White House candidate Joe Biden has had tough phone calls over the past two days with major donors to his campaign, who have raised questions about whether the 81-year-old president of the Democratic Party should remain in the race for the White House and why they should continue to fund him after a disturbing performance in the first televised debates last week, Reuters reported.
Biden's National Finance Committee held a series of emergency calls last night with hundreds of the Democratic Party's biggest donors and with people who have given money specifically to the current US president's campaign to distract their panic, the agency noted, citing "a number of informed sources".
Biden's unconvincing and at times confused performance in debates with Republican opponent Donald Trump at CNN's Atlanta studios on Thursday heightened concerns about the impact of age on his ability to lead the country and drew criticism from donors, voters and even some representatives of his party, Reuters points out.
While some of the financial donors blamed the aides who prepared him for the debate, there were calls from elsewhere, including the editorial board of the "New York Times", for Biden to withdraw his candidacy as the Democratic contender against Trump for the election on November 5.
The president, along with senior representatives of the Democratic Party, said he had no such intention. The head of his campaign staff, Jen O‘Miley Dillon, and her deputy, Quentin Fulks, said in a conversation with donors that initial surveys did not show that Biden's image suffered significantly after the debates.
The two have specified that Biden's staff will sharpen his public appearances and interviews to reassure the public that he is capable of handling the grueling campaign, an anonymous source familiar with the matter told Reuters.