President Biden's campaign officials on Monday made their most formal outreach yet to his wealthiest supporters after last week's toxic debate, seeking to quell panic that has rattled his financial base.
The hour-long Zoom audio call on Monday, which included about 500 members of the campaign's national finance committee and several other allies, was moderated by some of the Biden campaign's most senior officials, including committee chair Jen O'Malley Dillon, deputy campaign manager Quentin Fulks and pollster Molly Murphy.
“Everybody, just breathe through your nose for a minute,” Democratic National Committee finance chairman Chris Korge said toward the end of the call, which The New York Times accessed through an authorized participant.
Biden campaign officials downplayed the political fallout from Thursday's debate in Atlanta but offered little new information to members of the National Finance Committee. These donors have been in constant discussions with their own networks since Thursday night, on conference calls and Signal threads, about whether investing in the Biden campaign was the right decision.
Monday's comments did little to ease the fears of the campaign's wealthy supporters, according to participants in the call who spoke about it while the call was still ongoing. Biden's finance chairman, Rufus Giffords, did say that June fundraising numbers were going to be “extremely strong.”
The Biden campaign did not take questions from donors directly. Instead, donors submitted questions through the Zoom messaging app that other attendees could not read, according to people on the call. The campaign then chose from pre-submitted questions. Campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez did not participate in the call.
Some in attendance described it as almost simplistic and rudimentary.
One donor asked how the campaign would respond to the dramatic drop in the polls, but the campaign largely dismissed the concerns. “The media has spent an enormous amount of time overstating this,” said Fulks, the deputy campaign director. “We're not going to be on the defensive in this campaign.”
“Not to be optimistic or defensive, but I want to reiterate that at the end of the day, we're not going to win this election by continuing to talk about Joe Biden's age,” Fulks said at another meeting. “We're sitting here talking to you because we know we have to address this issue.”
Campaign chairman O'Malley Dillon acknowledged the debate “did not go the way we expected and it did not go the way the president expected.” Murphy, the campaign's most senior pollster, said internal surveys showed voters' minds had not changed. “Voters saw the debate, they took it, they didn't change their minds,” he said.
Despite the tightly controlled format of the call, the first question the Biden campaign chose to answer was about Biden's ability to do his job.
“He knows he's going to have to go out there and show that he's who we've always known him to be,” O'Malley Dillon said. She later compared it to Barack Obama's struggles in the first debate in 2012, but acknowledged that because the president is 81, the campaign “has a lot more work to do.”
What was most revealing about the call was the decision to host it in the first place, an acknowledgment that the Biden campaign is aware it is under scrutiny from its own supporters. Biden campaign fundraisers said communication from Biden campaign officials was inconsistent in the days after the debate but is improving. Some individual donors have been contacted directly by campaign officials, according to people close to the conversations, and Biden campaign fundraisers said communication intensified over the weekend.
O'Malley Dillon was one of the Biden campaign officials who held an “official NFC debate debriefing” for select members of the National Finance Committee in the basement of the Ritz-Carlton the morning after the Atlanta debate, according to materials distributed in advance to donors. But because many of the committee's members missed the NFC meetings over the summer, as of Monday only a select few had received formal instructions on how to talk about the president's debate performance.
Still, Biden campaign fundraisers jumped at the chance to participate. The call, which was open to those who aren't NFC members, drew hundreds of donors, including some who called in from vacation spots around the world.
The Biden campaign is working to maintain morale among its biggest backers, and some big donors have privately weighed whether it would make sense to replace Biden, but it's unclear whether the big donors will be able to convince him to do so.
Biden gathered secluded at Camp David on Monday morning, but his campaign remained defiant, pledging to continue the campaign regardless of the outcome of last week's debate. He is scheduled to return to the White House on Monday night and is expected to speak about the Supreme Court's decision that granted former President Donald J. Trump immunity from prosecution for trying to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
Family and friends continued to urge Biden over the weekend to keep fighting as Democrats called for him to step down, and aides at the White House and campaign tried to apply pressure, including issuing news releases about student loans and the president's overtime policies.
But the week was expected to be very different.
Biden and his campaign staff are preparing for poll results this week that may reveal whether his shaky, disjointed debate performances have caused his approval rating to plummet with less than five months to go until Election Day.
Biden and his advisers discussed over the weekend whether the president should hold an in-person news conference or interview to react to the debate's fallout, but both options carried political risks and no decision had been made by Monday morning.
The Trump campaign on Monday released its first TV ad since the debate, with Biden focusing on his rival and accusing Trump of repeatedly lying during the debate.
“Did you see Trump last night?” the president is seen saying during a speech in North Carolina on Friday. “I say this wholeheartedly: So many lies in one debate. He lied about the great economy that he created. He lied about the pandemic that he failed.”
The ad ends with the president saying, “As millions of Americans know, when I'm knocked down, I know I can get back up.”
Mr. Biden delivered a stronger, more disciplined speech at the North Carolina rally, and some of his political allies are hoping to see more of such demonstrations to show he has the drive to serve as president for another five years.
“Trump needs to get out in front of the public more aggressively than he has been doing so far – town hall meetings with voters, reporters, television interviews and press conferences. He needs to prove that this was just a bad night and not a pattern,” Matt Bennett, vice president of the Democratic think tank Third Way, told CNN.
But the president's schedule this week suggests he won't be following that advice, instead holding a three-day work week at the White House, few events and no rallies.
He will receive an extreme weather briefing and participate in a private campaign fundraiser on Tuesday, host a Medal of Honor ceremony on Wednesday and celebrate Independence Day with military personnel on Thursday.
Trump is due to return to his home in Wilmington, Delaware, on Friday with no events scheduled at the White House.
Biden campaign staff stressed to donors on Monday that the president has more opportunities to change the narrative, including a second debate planned for the fall, though some have questioned whether the debate will go ahead as scheduled.
“I'm looking forward to it,” O'Malley Dillon said of the second debate.
Maggie Haberman, Kenneth P. Vogel and Kate Kelly Contributed report.