After assassination attempt on Trump, Biden’s political challenge changes in an instant

By MJ Lee, Kayla Tausche, Priscilla Alvarez, Arlette Saenz and Jeff Zeleny, CNN

Washington (CNN) — President Joe Biden was bracing for a week of political onslaught.

More Democratic lawmakers were expected to publicly call on him to drop out of the 2024 race, a grueling campaign schedule would put his stamina on display and a high-stakes TV interview was sure to once again spotlight questions about his age, health and fitness to serve a second term.

When gunshots rang out at a Donald Trump political rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, Saturday evening, much of that appeared to change.

At least for a brief moment, politics largely came to a halt. As bipartisan calls condemning the horrific attack on Trump poured in from all corners of the country, the Biden campaign immediately paused TV ads and political communications, and the White House would also postpone the president’s trip to Monday to Texas, where he had planned to attend a fundraiser. He also addressed the nation from the Oval Office, calling for a lowering of the political temperature.

Something else largely came to a halt: The calls from within Biden’s own party for him to abandon his campaign for a second term. Until that moment, those calls had been growing by the day since his disastrous debate performance against Trump last month.

Even as the Biden campaign is working to delicately navigate a moment of national trauma and shock, some allies of the president are privately hopeful that the assassination attempt on Trump may ultimately end up quelling the Democratic dissent as the party recognizes the importance of standing as a united front. Biden returns to the campaign trail this week when he visits Nevada, a critical swing state. The trip will mark his first public test of campaigning against his predecessor in front of the backdrop of a country reeling from the shocking images of Saturday. Before he leaves for Las Vegas, Biden will sit down with NBC’s Lester Holt at the White House – an interview that now holds a difference kind of significance in the aftermath of the fatal Trump rally.

“I think it should,” one close Biden ally told CNN when asked if that may end up being a result of Saturday’s attack. But, they added, “it’s too early to tell. The tone of the next few days, especially with the RNC convention, will have a big impact.”

Democratic operatives had viewed the days after Biden’s press conference at the NATO summit late last week as a critical inflection point for his campaign amid a slow build of calls for the president to step aside.

While allies acknowledged that the president’s solo news conference was far stronger than his debate performance, concerns remained – including among donors who continued to hold back big-dollar donations.

“It all comes down to this weekend,” one strategist aware of Democratic lawmakers on the fence about abandoning the Biden effort had told CNN prior to the weekend.

Following the attempt on Trump’s life, those discussions were paused – but not stopped entirely, these sources said, as the political establishment assessed the repercussions and the need for the president to assume a leadership role. Biden spent the first 24 hours following the Trump rally trying to reassure the nation in three separate speeches – including the rare prime time Oval Office address – and promising in between briefings from the heads of various law enforcement agencies that his administration would answer for Saturday’s massive security breach.

Before the Trump rally in Pennsylvania got underway, Biden had spent Saturday afternoon on a tense call with a moderate group of House Democrats known as the New Democrat Coalition. One of the toughest questions came from Democratic Rep. Jason Crow, who asked Biden whether concerns about his mental acuity would affect national security, two sources told CNN. Biden was animated, per sources, as he defended his record and pointed to the work he has done to strengthen NATO.

Lawmakers also sought reassurances from Biden over the course of the call, but those sometimes fell flat, and sources described the president’s responses as defensive.

“He doesn’t have an answer to the question about what he’s going to do to change the momentum of the campaign,” Democratic Rep. Adam Smith told CNN following the call Saturday, adding that the president largely focused on his accomplishments in office.

“The message we’ve been getting from him and his team: Shut up, fall in line, everything’s fine,” said Smith, who has urged Biden to step aside. “That’s not good.”

While that outreach campaign unfolded, some of the president’s closest allies were pushing for unity.

“All corners of the party need to be working in tandem if we are going to be successful,” Rep. Jim Clyburn told Al Sharpton on MSNBC’s “Politics Nation” Saturday, prior to the Trump rally shooting. “So, what I want to see happen is for us to focus on the future for a little while, especially while the other side is in their convention.”

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer also traveled to Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, to meet with Biden over the weekend – an indication of the ongoing party angst. Schumer described the meeting as “good” in a statement, but a person familiar with the conversation said it was as candid and frank as one Biden held with House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries two nights earlier.

Neither Schumer nor Jeffries, who both have expressed worry about damage to the Democratic ticket, implicitly announced after their respective meetings that they were fully supportive of Biden’s decision to stay in the race.

Biden advisers had also been bracing for the Sunday shows as a likely venue for potential high-profile defections. But those expected discussions were quickly eclipsed by the response to the assassination attempt on Biden’s predecessor and political opponent.

With the Biden campaign in full survival mode, advisers had hoped the president’s speech in Detroit on Friday would help quell some of the concerns Democrats harbored about his candidacy, including his ability to effectively make the case against his GOP rival.

Standing before a supportive Michigan crowd urging him not to leave the race, Biden delivered one of his most forceful rebukes of Trump of the election cycle and outlined in detail for the first time what the first 100 days of a second Biden term would entail.

“We think that our voters are going to care about the issues and that is what’s going to matter when they go to the ballot box,” one campaign aide had said after the speech. “Outside the Beltway, it feels different, it looks different and things that motivate people are different.”

Republicans are moving forward with their national convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, this week, rallying around Trump as images of the defiant former president pumping his fist in the air – the right side of his head bloodied – have become some of the most iconic in modern American history.

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