President Joe Biden’s campaign is going on the attack against a chorus of donors, consultants, officials and media voices calling on him to drop out of the 2024 race after his devastating debate performance.

The strategy will be remembered as a display of either remarkable foresight or incredible hubris.

Aides spent the weekend publicly dismissing suggestions that Biden reconsider his candidacy or take dramatic steps to overhaul his operation. They angrily denounced the suggestion Biden and his family might entertain a discussion of leaving the race as they traveled to Camp David for a private getaway, where photographer Annie Leibovitz would be taking pictures of the beleaguered clan.

After cursory concessions that the debate went poorly, surrogates insisted the impact was overblown – and that those speculating about replacing Biden on the ticket were hurting their party by considering an idea that would only prompt chaos and infighting.

In private calls, public memos and media appearances, they mocked those who suggested the president self-inflicted a fatal wound as “bed wetters” out of touch with real Americans. Top Democratic lawmakers rallied around the president, fanning out on television to argue there’s still a path to victory against former President Donald Trump.

Yet concern about Biden’s candidacy may be extending more widely.

A post-debate poll by CBS News found that just 28% of registered voters believed Biden should be running for president, including only 54% of the president’s own party. Some 72% said Biden didn’t have the mental and cognitive health to serve as president.

Representative Jamie Raskin, an influential Maryland Democrat, said on MSNBC there were “very honest and serious and rigorous conversations taking place at every level of our party” about the path forward.

Photographers zooming in on Biden’s phone spotted him calling historian Jon Meacham – a frequent adviser whom he has consulted ahead of consequential moments in his administration – as the president boarded his Marine One helicopter Saturday night after a series of fundraisers.

Former hedge fund manager Whitney Tilson, a Democratic donor, emailed a group of top lawmakers urging them to persuade the campaign to put Biden in “unscripted settings” handling “fair but tough questions” in order to prove he isn’t “in a moderate to advanced state of cognitive decline.“

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