By Lauren Victoria Burke, NNPA Newswire Contributor
More than a week after a debate between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump, one fact remains: Not one member of the 60 member Congressional Black Caucus, the largest in history, has announced that they want President Biden to step aside as the presumptive Democratic nominee for the 2024 presidential race.
Even after the news that several senior members of the U.S. House are saying privately that Biden should step aside, no members of the Congressional Black Caucus are part of the group critical of the President. A zoom meeting called by House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries on July 7 featuring several members of the Congressional Black Caucus ended with none of the CBC members present siding against Biden.
On July 8, with only 120 days to go to Election Day on November 5, members of Congress return to session after a week-long 4th of July recess. The Democratic National Convention on August 19 is only 42 days away, Democrats have to answer the question of who their nominee will be quickly and the clock is ticking.
On July 6, Congresswoman Maxine Waters (D-CA), who is the ranking member of the House Financial Services Committee, said affirmatively from a stage at EssenceFest that, “I don’t care what anybody says — it ain’t going to be no other Democratic candidate. It’s going to be Biden!”
With control of the U.S. House and Senate on the line, the control of committees and who chairs them is connected to the Democrats’ success on Election Day. Rep. Waters’ sentiment is possibly the result of what she has heard from her working class constituents Black and brown.
Much like Waters, Virginia State Senator L. Louise Lucas was clear in a message on social media on July 6.
“I’m riding with Biden, just like every other damn Democrat I’ve talked to. Get the hell off Twitter (I know that means a lot coming from me ) and get the hell off your phone. Let’s get to work to save our democracy!!” Sen. Lucas who represents Black blue collar Portsmouth, Virginia, wrote.
Former CBC Chair Joyce Beatty also attending EssenceFest, told a reporter that she was tired of the public criticism of Democrats against their presumptive nominee for President.
“I don’t think for Democrats so close to the majority, so close and being so united under Hakeem Jeffries, we shouldn’t be going public, we shouldn’t be going rogue against our own President,” Rep. Beatty said.
“That’s 5 or 10 members out of 215/216 members, white men who are saying he should step down,” Beatty added.
As Democrats fight in public about possible mental issues regarding their nominee, Donald Trump has been virtually invisible less than two weeks before the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee.
A major criticism from many in the party who remain supportive of President Biden is the lack of focus on the vast number of issues and controversies around his opponent Donald Trump. Trump spent the June 27 debate against President Biden lying on a number of issues. But CNN did no real time fact checking during the debate.
The media, notably CNN and the New York Times, have been continuously critical of Biden.
It was reported on July 5, that Virginia’s senior Senator Mark Warner was planning to meet with other Senators to discuss President Biden stepping away from being the Democrats nominee for President. But two days later on July 7, the meeting was scrapped. U.S. Senators will meet on Tuesday at their weekly lunches.
Lauren Victoria Burke is an independent investigative journalist and the publisher of Black Virginia News. She is a political analyst who appears regularly on #RolandMartinUnfiltered and speaks on Crisis Comms on YouTube @LaurenVictoriaBurke. She can be contacted at LBurke007@gmail.com and on twitter at @LVBurke
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Stacy M. Brown is an NNPA Newswire Correspondent