WASHINGTON: President Joe Biden insisted again Monday he would not quit the US election race, as the White House denied he had Parkinson’s disease following a disastrous debate performance.
The 81-year-old dared Democratic critics to either challenge him at next month’s party convention in Chicago or back him against Donald Trump in November’s vote.
The president lashed out in both a letter to Congress and a rare call to a television program, at the start of a critical week that includes a NATO summit in Washington where he will face fresh scrutiny.
“I am firmly committed to staying in the race,” Biden wrote in the letter.
“It is time to come together, move forward as a unified party and defeat Donald Trump,” he said. “It’s time for it to end.”
The embattled president followed up by phoning into MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” television program to say he was “getting so frustrated by the elites” in the party.
“Any of these guys that don’t think I should run — run against me. Announce for president, challenge me at the convention,” he added.
Trump has been uncharacteristically quiet since the debate but he did speak out Monday on Fox News to say he thinks Biden will resist the pressure and stay in the race.
“He’s got an ego and he doesn’t want to quit,” Trump said in an interview with Sean Hannity.
But even as he doubled down, the pressure mounted on the oldest president in US history.
Congressman Adam Smith, the senior Democrat on the US House Armed Services Committee, became the sixth Democratic lawmaker to publicly say Biden should step aside.
“I think it’s become clear he’s not the best person to carry the Democratic message,” he told CNN.
Other senior Democrats voiced support for Biden, however.
“I made clear that day after the debate publicly that I support President Joe Biden and the Democratic ticket. My position has not changed,” House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries told CNN.
Biden’s blitz was a clear attempt to lay to rest the spiraling concerns over his health following the June 27 debate against Republican Trump, whom he trails in the polls.
During the debate, Biden repeatedly lost his train of thought, stared blankly and spoke at times incoherently and with a raspy voice. Biden has blamed jetlag and a cold.
The White House has also felt the pressure, with tense exchanges at a press briefing on Monday.
Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre called for “respect” while journalists challenged her refusal to confirm reports that a Parkinson’s specialist visited the White House eight times.
The visits by Kevin Cannard, a neurologist from the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center where Biden receives his medicals, were recorded in publicly available visitor logs.
“Has the President been treated for Parkinson’s? No. Is he being treated for Parkinson’s? No, he’s not. Is he taking medication for Parkinson’s? No,” Jean-Pierre said.
On Monday night the White House went so far as to release a letter from Biden’s personal doctor, Kevin O’Connor, insisting that the president had not seen a neurologist outside his three annual medicals.
The White House also denied reports that NATO allies attending this week’s 75th-anniversary summit in Washington had shown concerns about Biden.
“We’re not picking up any signs of that from our allies at all,” National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told reporters.
But NATO leaders have been seeking reassurance in any case amid polls forecasting a November victory for Trump.
The former president has long criticized the defense alliance, voiced admiration for Russian strongman Vladimir Putin, and insisted he could bring about a quick end to the war in Ukraine.
The NATO summit begins on Tuesday, the same day that Democrats, returning to Capitol Hill from a brief recess, hold a caucus meeting where Biden’s fate will be discussed.
The Democrat lags behind Trump in most polls even though his rival was recently convicted of a felony in a porn star hush money case.
Defiant Joe Biden throws down gauntlet to Democrats
https://arab.news/zfdrw
Defiant Joe Biden throws down gauntlet to Democrats
- President dares Democratic critics to either challenge him at next month’s party convention in Chicago or back him against Donald Trump in November’s vote
Nigeria signals more strikes likely in ‘joint’ US operations
- Nigeria on Friday signalled more strikes against jihadist groups were expected after a Christmas Day bombardment by US forces against militants in the north of the country
LAGOS: Nigeria on Friday signalled more strikes against jihadist groups were expected after a Christmas Day bombardment by US forces against militants in the north of the country.
The west African country faces multiple interlinked security crises in its north, where jihadists have been waging an insurgency in the northeast since 2009 and armed “bandit” gangs raid villages and stage kidnappings in the northwest.
The US strikes come after Abuja and Washington were locked in a diplomatic dispute over what Trump characterised as the mass killing of Christians amid Nigeria’s myriad armed conflicts.
Washington’s framing of the violence as amounting to Christian “persecution” is rejected by the Nigerian government and independent analysts, but has nonetheless resulted in increased security coordination.
“It’s Nigeria that provided the intelligence,” the country’s foreign minister, Yusuf Tuggar, told broadcaster Channels TV, saying he was on the phone with US State Secretary Marco Rubio ahead of the bombardment.
Asked if there would be more strikes, Tuggar said: “It is an ongoing thing, and we are working with the US. We are working with other countries as well.”
Targets unclear
The Department of Defense’s US Africa Command, using an acronym for the Daesh group, said “multiple Daesh terrorists” were killed in an attack in the northwestern state of Sokoto.
US defense officials later posted video of what appeared to be the nighttime launch of a missile from the deck of a battleship flying the US flag.
Which of Nigeria’s myriad armed groups were targeted remains unclear.
Nigeria’s jihadist groups are mostly concentrated in the northeast of the country, but have made inroads into the northwest.
Researchers have recently linked some members from an armed group known as Lakurawa — the main jihadist group located in Sokoto State — to Islamic State Sahel Province (ISSP), which is mostly active in neighboring Niger and Mali.
Other analysts have disputed those links, though research on Lakurawa is complicated as the term has been used to describe various armed fighters in the northwest.
Those described as Lakurawa also reportedly have links to Al-Qaeda affiliated group for the Support of Islam and Muslims (JNIM), a rival group to ISSP.
While Abuja has welcomed the strikes, “I think Trump would not have accepted a ‘No’ from Nigeria,” said Malik Samuel, an Abuja-based researcher for Good Governance Africa, an NGO.
Amid the diplomatic pressure, Nigerian authorities are keen to be seen as cooperating with the US, Samuel told AFP, even though “both the perpetrators and the victims in the northwest are overwhelmingly Muslim.”
Tuggar said that Nigerian President Bola Tinubu “gave the go-ahead” for the strikes.
The foreign minister added: “It must be made clear that it is a joint operation, and it is not targeting any religion nor simply in the name of one religion or the other.”
