President Joe Biden on Monday declared that everyday voters around the country are still backing him, expressing frustration with “elites” in the Democratic Party questioning his place at the top of the ticket in November after last month’s presidential debate in Atlanta sent lawmakers and donors into a frenzy.
"I wanted to make sure I was right – that the average voter out there still wanted Joe Biden and I’m confident they do,” Biden said in a phone interview with MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” on Monday.
The president went on to forcefully reiterate that he is “not going anywhere” as it pertains to the 2024 race, daring those who are calling for him to step out to try to challenge him at the party’s convention, set to take place later this summer.
“I'm getting so frustrated by the elites – I’m not talking about you guys, but by the elites in the party. They know so much more,” he said -- the second line with a sarcastic tone. “If any of these guys don’t think I should run, run against me. Go announce for president, challenge me at the convention.”
Biden's comments came hours before House lawmakers returned to the nation's capital on Monday and were pressed by reporters about Biden's place at the top of the ticket — and while at least one House Democrat joined the growing chorus of lawmakers urging the president to step aside, several other prominent figures in his party announced they were standing with him.
"The matter is closed," New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez told reporters outside the Capitol on Monday evening, saying she spoke with the president "extensively" over the weekend. "Joe Biden is our nominee. He is not leaving this race, he is in this race and I support him."
It comes as Washington is bracing for Congress’ return to the nation’s capital on Monday as questions from Democratic lawmakers about Biden’s place as the party’s best option to beat Trump in November appear to be mounting.
Just ahead of his appearance on MSNBC Monday morning, the president sent a two-page letter to Democrats on Capitol Hill, telling them he has no intention of leaving the race and declaring it is time for the post-debate questions of how the party should move forward – which he notes have been “well-aired" for over a week – to end.
“Any weakening of resolve or lack of clarity about the task ahead only helps Trump and hurts us,” Biden argued in the letter. “It is time to come together, move forward as a unified party, and defeat Donald Trump.”
Biden, in the letter, also sought to reassure Democrats that he has heard the concerns and “good faith fears and worries about what is at stake in this election.”
“I am not blind to them,” he wrote. “Believe me, I know better than anyone the responsibility and the burden the nominee of our party carries.”
“I can respond to all this by saying clearly and unequivocally: I wouldn't be running again if I did not absolutely believe I was the best person to beat Donald Trump in 2024,” the president wrote.
Biden also hopped on a campaign call with donors on Monday, during which he stressed the need to move on from the debate, according to his campaign.
"The Democratic Party has spoken. The Democratic nominee is me. And I’m going to be the nominee of the party," he said on the call. "We can’t waste any more time being distracted."
He also emphasized the need to put the focus back on Trump.
"I have one job, and that’s to beat Donald Trump," the president said. "I’m absolutely certain I’m the best person to be able to do that."
A handful of House Democrats have publicly called on Biden to step down from the 2024 contest over the last week, with several others reportedly expressing a similar sentiment in a private video meeting convened by House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., over the weekend, according to multiple outlets. The House was in session the day after the debate but was out of town all of last week for the Fourth of July recess.
On Monday, another joined the chorus: Washington Rep. Adam Smith, the top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, who urged Biden to "take a step back" from the ticket and called for Vice President Kamala Harris to take his place.
"I think it’s become clear that he’s not the best person to carry the Democratic message," Smith said on CNN, before praising the Democrats' platform and record and acknowledging Biden's role in the country's economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic.
He went on to call a second Trump presidency a "complete disaster," condenming the far-right Project 2025 agenda, which the ex-president attempted to distance himself from last week, and his economic proposals.
"We've got a good message," Smith continued. "The president has shown he is not capable of delivering that message in an effective way."
As to who should replace Biden? "Personally, I think Kamala Harris would be a much better, stronger candidate," Smith said.
But as Monday wore on, Biden also saw somewhat of a surge in support, namely in the form of Congressional Black Caucus Chair Steven Horsford, D-Nev., as well as other members of the influential conference, including former CBC chair Rep. Joyce Beatty.
"President Joe Biden is the nominee and has been selected by millions of voters across this country, including voters here in Nevada," Hosford said in a statement.
“The voters in Nevada care about a thriving and equitable economy, taking on big corporations to lower costs and protecting the hard fought freedoms, rights and opportunities we’ve earned,” he continued. “They’re focused on moving forward and reject the divisive politics of those who would like to take us back.
"They know President Biden and Vice President Harris are fighting for them," Horsford's statement reads. "Like me, they don’t want to see Donald Trump back in the White House and are ready to work and VOTE to ensure that doesn’t happen. We’re not going back, we’re moving forward.”
In an interview with Spectrum News on Monday, Beatty hailed Biden's track record on the economy, health care and his defense of democracy, as well as his win over Trump in 2020.
"In 2020 ... said that President Trump could not be beaten and that Joe Biden would not beat him, and he did," Beatty said. "And since then, he has been able to turn this country around."
After praising Biden and Harris' track record for Black Americans, Beatty cast Trump as "someone that has openly said that he wants retribution and revenge" and condemned the Supreme Court's ruling in his immunity claim last week.
"We need someone who is ready right now," she said. "And that person is President Joe Biden."
Biden was set to call into a meeting with the CBC on Monday evening, Beatty confirmed to Spectrum News.
House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., told reporters that he's standing firmly behind Biden.
"I made clear that day after the debate publicly that I support President Joe Biden and the Democratic ticket," Jeffries told reporters on Monday. "My position has not changed."
Other House lawmakers on Monday joined the larger chorus of those standing by the president.
"I will support vigorously whoever the nominee is, which right now clearly is President Biden," California Rep. Ro Khanna, who campaigned for Biden and stumped for him in New Hampshire's primary earlier this year, told reporters.
"What I think is critically important right now is that we focus on what it takes to win in November," Ocasio-Cortez said Monday. "Because he is running against Donald Trump, who is a man with 34 felony convictions, that has committed 34 felony crimes, and not a single Republican has asked for Donald Trump to not be the nominee."
"I'm with the president," California Rep. Nanette Barragán told Spectrum News. "I think we need to recommit ourselves to going out there and continue with engagement."
Some continued to express caution, like Nevada Rep. Susie Lee, who said in a statement that she still has "serious concerns" about Biden and he needs to "prove to the American people" that he can still serve, but it is a "clear" choice between the incumbent and Trump, who she said is a "threat to democracy, national security, and Nevadans' fundamental rights."
On the other side of the Capitol, the president on Friday responded to reports that Democratic Sen. Mark Warner was seeking to gather fellow senators in his party to discuss Biden’s place as their nominee, telling ABC News in a highly anticipated interview that “Mark is a good man.”
“Mark and I have a different perspective,” he said. “I respect him.”
When asked about it earlier on Friday, Biden told reporters that Warner was “the only one considering that.”
For his part, Warner said in a statement Monday that "it is incumbent upon the president to more aggressively make his case to the American people, and to hear directly from a broader group of voices about how to prevent Trump's lawlessness from returning to the White House.
"With so much at stake in the upcoming election, now is the time for conversations about the strongest path forward," Warner said.
The president’s just over 20-minute sit-down interview with ABC News on Friday was part of the Biden team’s efforts to shore up confidence in the commander in chief amid the post-debate panic, but appeared to do little to stop the fallout.
Biden’s response to a question about how he will feel in January if he stays in the race and Trump is elected, in which he said: “I'll feel as long as I gave it my all and I did the good as job as I know I can do, that's what this is about,” sparked concern among Democrats in particular.
“This is not just about whether he gave it the best college try, but rather whether he made the right decision to run or to pass the torch,” Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., said of Biden’s answer on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday. “That is the most important decision for him to make right now.”
Asked about his answer to the question on Monday morning, Biden said: “I haven’t lost, I beat him last time, I’ll beat him this time.”
The president declining to agree to take independent neurological and cognitive tests and release the full results to the public in the ABC interview also left some uneasy.
Biden on Monday reiterated his argument that he has such a test “every day” while serving as president.
During a campaign rally in battleground Wisconsin on Friday, Biden displayed an air of defiance when he declared he was staying in the race despite people trying to “push” him out in the wake of his debate performance.
Biden on Monday said he didn’t care what “those big names think” when asked about the editorial boards of major media outlets as well as prominent figures in the party calling on him to step down.
“They were wrong in 2020, they were wrong in 2022 about the 'red wave,' they are wrong in 2024,” he said.
Spectrum News' Taylor Popielarz, Cassie Semyon and Kevin Frey contributed to this report.