Politics

Washington — Several senior House Democrats said Sunday that President Biden should end his reelection campaign in the wake of his recent debate performance, multiple people tell CBS News.

Reps. Jerry Nadler of New York, Mark Takano of California, Adam Smith of Washington and Joe Morelle of New York said Sunday during a Zoom meeting with House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries that Mr. Biden should leave the race, according to a person on the call and three other people familiar with the meeting. 

Reps. Jim Himes of Connecticut, Don Beyer of Virginia and Jamie Raskin of Maryland also expressed skepticism of the president’s electoral chances, the member on the call and a person familiar with the meeting said. Beyer’s office on Sunday reaffirmed his support for Mr. Biden, despite initial reports suggesting that he was part of the group calling on the president to step aside.  

CBS News has reached out to all the members who sources say either expressed reservations about the president’s chances or said he should withdraw from the race.   

A spokesperson for Jeffries declined to comment on the call. 

The meeting came after House Democratic leaders convened a call last week amid a slow leak of Democratic lawmakers who have called for him to step aside. On Saturday, Rep. Angie Craig, who represents a frontline district in Minnesota, became the latest House Democrat to call for the president to withdraw from the race. And the attention is expected to be on the president’s support in Congress as lawmakers return from recess this week. 

Meanwhile, Mr. Biden has appeared defiant in recent days, making clear that he plans to stay in the race despite concern from some members of his party. When asked during an interview with ABC News anchor George Stephanopoulos on Friday whether he would step down if there were calls from the party’s leaders in Congress, Mr. Biden brushed the question aside, saying “they’re not going to do that.”

The president said he had an hour-long conversation with Jeffries and had spent “many hours” with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer. The president also convened a meeting at the White House with Democratic governors last week. 

“If the Lord almighty came down and said ‘Joe, get out of the race,’ I’d get out of the race,” the president said. “The Lord almighty’s not coming down.”

Meanwhile, Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia has been speaking with Democratic colleagues about finding ways to convince the president to step aside and let others seek the nomination, a senator who’s been contacted by Warner told CBS News on Thursday. The senator noted at the time that there weren’t formal plans yet. 

Nikole Killion and Fin Gómez contributed reporting.

Washington — NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said Sunday that far-right Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán‘s trip to Moscow last week for talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin does not change NATO’s position on assistance to Ukraine despite Hungary being a member country of the alliance. 

“Prime Minister Orbán… he made it clear when he came to Moscow that he didn’t go there on behalf of NATO, different NATO allies interact with Moscow in different ways,” Stoltenberg said Sunday on “Face the Nation.”

Hungary assumed the largely ceremonial role of the six-month rotating presidency of the EU on Monday, July 1. In less than a week, Orbán visited Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Ukraine and launched the “Patriots for Europe” alliance with other right-wing nationalists, according to Reuters.

But on Friday, during a rare trip to Russia by a European leader, he also met with Putin, a meeting that came just days before a NATO summit in Washington, D.C. where the topic of providing further military aid to Ukraine will be at the forefront.

Despite other European officials condemning Orbán’s trip to Moscow, Stoltenberg emphasized the meeting doesn’t change NATO’s common goals of aiding Ukraine in the war launched by the Russian invasion.

“What matters for me is that all allies have agreed that we need to do more  for Ukraine, both with this new training and assistance that NATO will provide to Ukraine, but also with the long term pledge,” he said on “Face the Nation. “And I also expect that by the summit that starts next week, allies will make new announcements on more air defense and more ammunition.”

Stoltenberg added that a main factor in NATO’s ability to make decisions on support to Ukraine is the common goal for peace.

“And the only way to get there is to convince President Putin that he will not win on the battlefield, he has to sit down and accept a solution where Ukraine prevails as a sovereign, independent nation in Europe,” Stoltenberg said. “The only way to convince Putin that he will not win on the battlefield is abroad military support to Ukraine. So a negotiated solution that is lasting for Ukraine requires military support to Ukraine.”

This week’s summit in Washington also comes as NATO allies have been bracing for possible Trump 2024 victory. 

During former President Donald Trump’s first term as president, America’s allies were shocked by his open criticism of the failure of some NATO members to meet defense funding commitments, and the Trump campaign has said that calling on allies to increase their defense spending is a policy that a future Trump White House would aggressively pursue.

Trump said at a February campaign rally in South Carolina that he’d encourage Russia to “do whatever the hell they want” to NATO allies who don’t pay their fair share into the Western military alliance. Referring to a conversation with an unnamed leader of a NATO country who asked him, “If we don’t pay, are you still going to protect us,” Trump said he replied, “Absolutely not.”

The NATO Secretary General met with Mr. Biden in June at the White House ahead of this week’s summit. When asked Sunday of his personal assessment of Mr. Biden as an effective leader, Stoltenberg said their conversation was a positive one.

“We had a good-we had a productive meeting. And of course, there is no way to make these big decisions on how to further strengthen NATO, enlarge NATO, new members without having a strong US leadership,” he said.

Mayor Jyoti Gondek has faced a barrage of criticism as she guided Calgary through a water main break that forced city residents and businesses to limit their water use for over a month.

While the mayor says the experience has given her a deep appreciation of partnerships with everyone from the provincial government to the private sector, she said she believes Calgarians have learned something too — the true value of what comes out of their taps.

“As horrible as it was for our city and region to deal with, I think it really shone a light on the fact that we have amazing human beings in this city and this region,” she said in an interview.

Gondek said she hears people talking about how their habits have changed to better conserve water and that they’re just happy their water is back on.

“I hear much, much more of that than the negativity, and that’s what keeps me going.”

It all began June 5, after a massive water main supplying 60 per cent of the drinking water for the city ruptured and flooded streets.

A directive was issued to have Calgarians cut their indoor water use by 25 per cent with fewer showers and toilet flushes. Car washes and indoor pools were also closed.

Crews scrambled to repair the line and, in the process, found five more weak spots to fix, and the city declared a state of local emergency.

Following lengthy repairs, most restrictions have been lifted in the past week.

Just ahead of July’s Calgary Stampede, the city lifted its state of emergency and gave residents the green light to ease back into normal indoor water usage.

Gondek announced more relief Saturday in the form of fewer outdoor water restrictions — including the reopening of outdoor public pools.

A ban on outdoor watering remained in place Saturday, with the system running at reduced capacity to keep enough water in reserve to fight fires and for the replacement line to undergo tests.

Gondek has apologized for communication flubs in the first few days following the infrastructure failure.

“The word catastrophic has not been used lightly to describe what happened here,” said Gondek.

“It was one of those things where people couldn’t see it, and so if they couldn’t see what was wrong, it was hard for them to comprehend that all of us needed to save water.”

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Calgary water main break: Mayor warns ‘if it happened in Calgary, it can happen anywhere’

Officials couldn’t say Saturday when exactly all the restrictions would be lifted, and Gondek isn’t celebrating yet.

She reiterated that even though the water main has been fixed, the city’s system still needs time to get back to full capacity.

As council plans to appoint an independent panel to investigate how and why the water main ruptured, Gondek said the post-mortem probably won’t assuage her most vocal detractors.

“The folks that are angry, and think it was a conspiracy — I don’t know that anything is going to satisfy them,” she said.

“So what you have to do is keep your head down and do the work and keep your chin up and know that there are very good people in this world who took up the call to action and did a great job in saving water.”

Gondek has praised Alberta Premier Danielle Smith for offering to help the city at the outset of the crisis.

She’s lauded Calgary Stampede organizers for trucking water in for the event and the private sector for its help in fixing the pipe.

She has noted that Calgarians managed to cut their water usage by 25 per cent.

The crisis is the latest challenge in a mayoral tenure that has been marked at times by extreme opposition, from an organized effort to recall her from office to the backlash against city council’s blanket rezoning effort to densify housing.

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Calgary water main break: Mayor Gondek praises locals for record low water consumption

Recent polls suggest her popularity continues to sink.

Gondek stands by the work of city administration and government and the importance of demonstrating that the community can come together.

“We don’t always get it right, but we are open to listening to the public and we are moving forward,” she said, adding it is more difficult now than when she was first elected as a councillor in 2017 to have a rational, civil public conversation.

“Everything changed during the pandemic, and the conspiracies and the negativity and the polarization and the vitriol escalated, and it’s at a very dangerous level right now.”

Gondek said she copes with the job in part by getting on her rowing machine early in the morning, when she can, and soaking up the morning news.

“I don’t believe in this principle of water off a duck’s back. You have to feel things in the moment, because once you stop feeling, you’re not going to be serving the public properly,” she said.

“I also have the ability to bounce away from that and say ‘All right, now it’s time to go do this instead.’”

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