Biden tries to calm his top fundraisers during a private call

President Biden spoke directly to some of his top fundraisers and donors on Monday, reiterating his claim that he is staying in the race and telling them to shift the focus of the campaign from him to former President Donald J. Trump.

“I have one job, to beat Donald Trump, and I’m the best person to do it,” Biden said during a call with his campaign’s National Finance Committee, according to a listener who relayed the president’s remark to The New York Times. “It’s time to put Donald Trump in the crosshairs,” Biden added, according to a second listener.

The president’s 19-minute address to donors was the most formal plea to his backers since his poor debate performance a week ago that they should keep going.

His appearance, announced to his fundraisers just 24 minutes before the call began, came after he sent a defiant letter to congressional Democrats Monday morning rejecting the idea that he should withdraw and gave an interview on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” inviting challengers to try to stop him at the party’s convention next month.

Mr. Biden answered four questions during the donor call, screened by his aides, about how he planned to proceed as a candidate. One asked for a 30-second elevator pitch to give to voters. Another sought to understand how Mr. Biden would handle this round of media scrutiny. A third wanted to know how he would handle the next debate.

Nearly a dozen people listening to the conference call described Biden’s comments to The Times.

As pressure mounts within the Democratic Party to oust Biden, various groups of donors have begun agitating for an alternative nominee, though many wealthy Democrats remain uncertain whether they have any leverage. Biden and his top aides have sought to position the effort to remove him from the ticket as a phenomenon driven by the party’s wealthy elite.

Since the debate, Biden and his campaign team have been in a state of Democratic panic, with an intense focus on his mental acuity amid questions about his ability to campaign vigorously and serve another four years as president — the subject of an interview he gave to ABC News on Friday.

During the call Monday, Biden implored his donors to shift the focus back to Trump, a turn Democrats have been demanding in recent days in an effort to change the subject from Biden’s own fitness.

“Attack, attack, attack,” Biden said when asked about the next debate and how he would change his preparation and format.

The call, which also included Maryland Gov. Wes Moore and Jennifer O’Malley Dillon, the president’s campaign manager, began more than 30 minutes late, with irritated donors fuming in front of blank Zoom screens. Biden’s appearance was announced to fundraisers just 24 minutes before the call was scheduled to begin. Opinions were mixed about Biden’s performance, with several participants telling The Times that Biden had some positive, reassuring moments, while others were dissatisfied and unsettled, particularly by the screening of questions.

Mr. Biden was also asked about the relentless media criticism of his debate performance and his communications strategy to defeat it. One donor implored him to combat the narrative by bringing back “Scranton Joe,” his political persona from Pennsylvania.

“He’s only three years younger than me, and I’ll run against him on everything,” Biden said of Trump, reiterating his accomplishments as president and promising to deliver that message to voters.

At one point, Biden answered a question from a woman who said she would crawl through broken glass for him, but added that she wanted to know what his message would be in his elevator pitch to activists knocking on doors.

Mr Biden spoke about his record, saying he needed to tell people he came from a middle-class background, too. He referred to himself as “Joe Biden” in the third person and suggested he would work on lowering health care costs, among other things.

Mr. Biden was also asked about Project 2025, an effort by Mr. Trump’s allies to reform the federal government and give him much more power if he wins back the presidency. Mr. Biden said his campaign would spend significant money to spread a negative message about Mr. Trump’s second-term agenda, despite the former president’s efforts to distance himself from the effort, which was led by the Heritage Foundation and some of his former aides.

The National Finance Committee is made up of a broad range of Democratic donors, including some of the wealthiest people in the country, as well as some lesser-known, upper-middle-class liberal activists who host Biden when he’s in town.

The appeal was hastily planned, just the day before, and some fundraisers, still returning from the Fourth of July holiday, complained about the lack of notice. On Monday night, Ms. O’Malley Dillon offered a similar appeal to about 500 of Mr. Biden’s top fundraisers, with the campaign offering little new information but encouraging a general attitude of patience and calm. A week later, the campaign decided it needed Mr. Biden himself to calm donors’ fears.

Kate Kelly, Shane Goudmacher And Kenneth P.Vogel contributed to the reporting.