House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries — the top Democrat in the House — backed the Biden-Harris presidential ticket in a recent radio interview.
“President Biden, as I’ve said repeatedly, is our nominee,” Jeffries said in an interview with WNYC’s Brian Lehrer. “He is one of the most accomplished American presidents in our history and he has the vision, I believe the ability, the capacity, and the track record to make a case to the American people that will result in us being successful in November.”
Jeffries, who privately urged Biden to step aside earlier this week citing polling challenges, has since backed down.
“The ticket that exists right now is a ticket that we can win on,” the minority leader told Lehrer. “There, of course, is work to be done. And that, in fact, is the case because we are an evenly divided country.”
Jeffries joins representatives including Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in publicly backing the president amidst friendly fire on his campaign. The New York congresswoman took to Instagram Live to slam her colleagues who took private stances against Biden’s candidacy without a backup plan.
Other House Democrats have vehemently pushed back on the efforts to oust Biden, while just over 30 of the 213 members of the caucus have voiced their opposition to the candidate after his widely panned debate performance.
According to the White House, Biden told Jeffries during the pair’s conversation that he wouldn’t leave the race.
“The president told both leaders he is the nominee of the party. He plans to win, and looks forward to working with both of them to pass his 100 days agenda to help working families,” Biden spokesman Andrew Bates said in a statement to the Washington Post.
CORRECTION: An earlier version of this article referred to Jeffries as “reversing course.” The headline has been reflected to represent his lack of public calls against President Biden’s candidacy.