STORY: Democratic U.S. President Joe Biden faced fresh doubts on Wednesday about his re-election chances including from two high-profile members of the party: Nancy Pelosi and major donor George Clooney.
The former House speaker who is a longtime Biden ally told MSNBC he must decide quickly whether to stay in the 2024 race while declining to say definitively that she wanted him to run.
Hollywood star Clooney who co-hosted a fundraiser for Biden last month, withdrew his support with a damning opinion piece in the New York Times saying that Biden was not the same man he was in 2020.
Meanwhile on Capitol Hill, House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries told lawmakers Wednesday that he would relay their concerns about Biden's electability to the president, according to media reports.
For nearly two weeks the 81-year-old has sought to stem defections by congressional representatives in his party, donors and other allies worried he might lose the Nov. 5 election to his 78-year-old Republican rival Donald Trump, after a halting debate performance.
The president has said again and again that he will be the Democratic candidate and that he believes he can beat Trump.
He has said repeatedly that he had a bad night at the June 27th debate and vowed to stay in the race.
So far, public defections remain a small segment of the 213 Democratic-aligned House members, and the party's leadership continues to back Biden publicly.
No members of the Senate have publicly said Biden should stand aside, though Senator Michael Bennet of Colorado said on Tuesday he did not believe Biden could beat Trump.
