Several high-ranking Democrats have rallied behind President Joe Biden, despite expressing concerns over his ability to run in the wake of the president’s disastrous debate performance.
The statements of support come as other Democrat have ramped up calls for the president to step down as the party’s 2024 nominee amid growing concerns over his cognitive ability.
Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., touted Biden in a Friday tweet, calling him “a great President who continues to deliver for America’s kitchen table.”
“Because of the policies and investments of Joe Biden and Congressional Democrats, we have the strongest economy in the world,” Pelosi wrote. “15.7 million new jobs, wages are up, inflation and costs are down — and we’re not done yet!”
Pelosi neglected to mention that employment for native-born Americans remains well below pre-Covid levels. All net job growth has gone to foreign-born workers, including illegal migrants, per U.S. Department of Labor data.
“[T]he economy has only been adding jobs that are held by foreign-born workers while native-born Americans are losing jobs,” economist EJ Antoni previously explained to The Federalist.
Grocery costs, meanwhile, have become unaffordable for Americans across the country due to rampant inflation unleashed during the Biden administration. The consumer price index has increased by 19.9 percent since Biden took office, per U.S. Department of Labor data.
Despite her recent praise for Biden, Pelosi acknowledged concerns over his mental and physical health just last week.
“I think it’s a legitimate question to say, is this an episode or is this a condition?” she told MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell.
Pelosi is not alone in the effort to rally behind Biden.
Rep. Jim Clyburn, D-S.C., tweeted a defense of the Biden economy on Saturday, echoing the “15 million new jobs” claim. He also claimed Biden “capped [insulin] at $35/month for seniors on Medicare.”
The Biden campaign has repeatedly tried to claim responsibility for the policy, despite the fact that President Trump issued the cap via executive order in 2020. Biden reversed Trump’s executive order and fully canceled its implementation within a year of taking office. He then signed the Inflation Reduction Act in 2022, reissuing the exact same $35 per month insulin cap initiated under the Trump administration.
Clyburn’s stumping comes less than a week after he floated a detailed process to hypothetically replace Biden at the Democratic National Convention in August.
“You can actually fashion the process that’s already in place to make it a mini-primary, and I would support that, absolutely,” Clyburn told CNN on July 3. “We can’t close that down, and we should open up everything for the general election.”
Clyburn added that he thinks Kamala Harris would perform “very well in that kind of process” and emphasized the “700 delegates” who remain uncommitted to Biden.
Clyburn’s spokeswoman later insisted that the congressman “fully supports President Biden.”
Democrats to the left of Biden are also circling the wagons in his defense. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, D-N.Y., told a crowd of reporters that “the matter is closed” and “Biden is our nominee” on Monday.
Sen. Bernie Sanders, Independent-Vt., insisted that Biden “can clearly defeat Donald Trump” during a Sunday appearance on CBS. He later added, “Biden is old. He’s not as articulate as he once was. I wish he could jump up the steps on Air Force One, he can’t.”
