DONALD Trump is set to hold a triumphant first campaign rally Saturday since surviving an assassination attempt, in startling contrast to President Joe Biden, who remains hunkered at home with Covid, resisting unprecedented Democratic pressure to step aside.
As Trump prepared to descend on battleground Michigan to stump with his vice presidential running mate J.D. Vance for the first time, Biden loyalists continued to defend the embattled president.
“I’m all in,” Michigan Senator Debbie Stabenow said in a call Saturday with reporters ahead of the Republicans’ rally in her state.
She predicted that Trump and Vance would “try to rewrite history and pretend to care about working people,” but then added dismissively, “Give me a break.”
The president and his team have remained publicly adamant about his plans to continue campaigning — a spokesman said Saturday that Biden would be back on the trail “next week” — though some reports suggest discussions have begun in his inner circle about how exactly he might step aside.
Pressure has become intense, with a growing number of senior Democratic lawmakers and donors warning the 81-year-president that a Biden-led ticket could cost not only control of the White House but Congress as well.
There has been massive speculation over who could replace Biden. As vice president, Kamala Harris appears best-positioned to do so.
Senator Elizabeth Warren, a leading progressive who sought the party’s presidential nod in 2020, gave Harris a boost Saturday without turning her back on the president.
“Joe Biden is our nominee,” she said on MSNBC. “He has a really big decision to make.
“But what gives me a lot of hope right now is that if President Biden decides to step back, we have Vice President Kamala Harris, who is ready to step up, to unite the party, to take on Donald Trump, and to win in November.”
Some Democrats, however, fear that such a late switch from Biden could trigger chaos, dooming the party.
Michael Tyler, the Biden-Harris communications director, insisted Saturday in the briefing call with Stabenow that the president would be back on the campaign trail “as soon as we have a green light.”
Team Trump for its part is effervescent after an exceptional streak of political good luck — from favorable court rulings to Biden’s disastrous debate and even to the attempt on Trump’s life that he used to galvanize his base.