Biden’s family tells him to keep fighting as they gather at Camp David

President Biden’s family is urging him to stay in the race and keep fighting despite last week’s disastrous debate performance, even as some members of his clan privately expressed irritation with the way he was prepared for the event by his staff, people close to the situation said Sunday.

Biden sat with his wife, children and grandchildren at Camp David as he tried to figure out how to calm fears about Democrats. While his family members are well aware of how poorly he fared against former President Donald J. Trump, they argued that he could still show the country he could serve another four years.

Mr. Biden has also sought advice from advisers on how to proceed, and his staff has discussed whether to hold a news conference or conduct interviews to defend himself to change the narrative, but nothing has been decided yet.

One of the strongest voices imploring Mr. Biden to resist pressure to resign was his son Hunter Biden, whom the president has long leaned on for advice, one of the people briefed on the discussions said and who, like others, spoke on condition of anonymity to share internal deliberations. Hunter Biden wants Americans to see the version of his father he knows — sloppy and knowledgeable — instead of the stumbling, aging president Americans saw Thursday night.

Other family members tried to figure out how to be helpful. At least one of the president’s grandchildren has expressed interest in becoming more involved in the campaign, perhaps by talking to social media influencers, the person informed said.

The anger among Democrats was on display Sunday when John Morgan, a top Democratic donor, publicly blamed the advisers who led the president’s debate preparations, naming Ron Klain, Anita Dunn and Bob Bauer.

“Biden has been fooled for too long by the worth of Anita Dunn and her husband,” Mr. Morgan said wrote on social media. ‘They have to go… TODAY. The horror is disgusting. It was political malpractice.”

He explained this in a subsequent interview. “It would be like taking a prize fighter who was going to have a title fight, putting him in a sauna for 15 hours and then saying, ‘Go fight,’” he said. “I believe the debate is solely about Ron Klain, Bob Bauer and Anita Dunn.”

Members of Mr Biden’s family are also said to be focused on the president’s staff, including Ms Dunn, a senior White House adviser, and her husband, Mr Bauer, the president’s personal lawyer, who played Mr Trump during debate rehearsals.

They asked why Mr. Klain, the former White House chief of staff who led preparations, would allow him to be bombarded with statistics in their eyes, and they were angry that Mr. Biden, who arrived in Atlanta for the debate with a summer tan, was made up to look pale and pale, said one of the people, who has been in contact with several members of the family.

But the person said the president himself was not among those angry and that he still trusted Mr. Klain, Ms. Dunn, Mr. Bauer and the others. Other Democrats said it was unfair to blame staff for the president’s own shortcomings, rejecting what they called typical second-guessing and scapegoating. A few Democrats pointed out that family members did not attend the preparation sessions.

Since the debate, Biden has acknowledged, both privately and publicly, that he has done a bad job. He has called trusted advisers like Klain, Ted Kaufman, his longtime adviser and friend, and Jon Meacham, the historian and informal adviser, as well as major donors and party figures.

But two people familiar with Mr. Biden’s calls said they were more interested in checking out what people were saying than seeking advice on reassessing his future. One of the people on Mr. Biden’s phone tree said the president wanted to continue campaigning hard to create a contrast with Mr. Trump, a convicted felon who tried to overturn the last election and made numerous false statements during the debate.

While the campaign has strongly rejected advice that Biden step aside for another candidate just weeks before the roll call vote to formalize his nomination, many Democrats, including some who worked for the president, said they did not believe the door was closed to that possibility.

But Mr. Biden is a proud man, and they said they believed the odds of him trying to stamp it out were still 4 or 5 to 1. The only way they said they could imagine him changing course was if he was given an opportunity. a dignified exit in which he could take credit for ousting Mr. Trump in 2020, rebuilding the country and serving as a transition to the next generation.

A new CBS News poll found strong sentiment among Democratic voters that the 81-year-old Biden should yield to a younger nominee. Forty-five percent of Democrats said they want another candidate to challenge Trump. Among voters overall, just 27 percent think the 81-year-old Biden is mentally and cognitively healthy to serve as president, down from 35 percent before the debate.

Democratic allies took to the talk shows on Sunday to defend the president. “If they weren’t doing a little hand-wringing, they wouldn’t be Democrats,” Sen. Raphael Warnock of Georgia said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” But he added: “Joe Biden has shown, not in 90 minutes, but in the last four years, the character and courage of the man he is.”

Maryland Governor Wes Moore acknowledged that Biden’s age was a concern for voters. “The number 81 is an important number,” he said on “Face the Nation” on CBS. “But so does looking at historically low unemployment rates. And I don’t think people should lose sight of that.”

Mr. Moore said he would not run if Mr. Biden withdrew. “Joe Biden is not going to take himself out of this race, and neither should he,” he said. “He has been a remarkable partner.”

Former Speaker Nancy Pelosi dismissed the rumor that the president was withdrawing. “I support the Biden-Harris ticket,” she told Jen Psaki, a former Biden spokesperson, on MSNBC. “I’m not abandoning Joe Biden now, to any speculation.”

If important conversations about the president’s future were to take place with the family, two Biden confidants said, they would not take place at Camp David because too many people outside the family could overhear.

The family had planned to spend the weekend at Camp David before the debate, in part to take part in a photo shoot with veteran celebrity photographer Annie Leibovitz. It was the first time the entire family had been together in one place since Hunter Biden was convicted on federal weapons charges; he still faces sentencing and a new trial on tax charges.

A senior administration official who was not authorized to provide details of internal discussions said there was an ongoing debate over how the president should move forward. Not about withdrawing, but about the best way to make it clear that he shouldn’t do that.

The version of Mr. Biden that has emerged at rallies and fundraisers since Atlanta is more in line with the person his aides are describing — someone energetic, empathetic and willing to keep fighting into November.

But some aides were not happy with his reliance on teleprompters at fundraisers, a practice fueled by advisers who have sought a more disciplined approach from the president even in informal settings. One aide said Mr. Biden had been “deterred” from a more informal approach in recent months.