‘Not done yet’: Joe Biden tells Detroit Dems he’s staying in the race

President Joe Biden on Friday forcefully defied the growing number of critics in his own party who have called on him to exit the race, pivoting to warnings about a second Donald Trump term and declaring he was “not done yet.”

As a raucous Detroit crowd chanted “don’t you quit!” and “we got your back!” Biden said — again — that he was still running for reelection and vowed to “shine a spotlight on Donald Trump” and what the Republican would do if he returned to the White House. Biden lambasted an expansive far-right policy agenda crafted by conservative think tanks that Trump has scrambled to distance himself from, while ticking off several items on his own wish list for the first 100 days of his second term.

At the same school where, four years ago, then-candidate Biden positioned himself as a bridge to the next generation of Democratic leaders, the embattled president, who has been under pressure for more than two weeks to step aside, made it clear he was going nowhere.

“You made me the nominee, no one else — not the press, not the pundits, not the insiders, not donors,” Biden said, to cheers. “You, the voters. You decided. No one else. And I’m not going anywhere.”

The show of force from Biden at the evening rally was part of his team’s relentless sprint to convince fretting lawmakers, nervous donors and a skeptical electorate that at the age of 81, he is still capable of being president. But a spate of travel to battleground states, interviews with journalists and a rare solo news conference have not tamped down the angst within the party about Biden’s candidacy and his prospects against Trump in November.

However, the support Biden retains among Democrats was clear among the hundreds of supporters at the rally, who waved signs that read “Motown is Joetown” and enthusiastically cheered the president’s remarks — and jeered at any mention of Trump.

Biden also criticized the media, claiming was focusing on his errors and not on Trump’s. It prompted his supporters to boo reporters in the room — a staple of Trump rallies — though Biden tried briefly to calm the jeers, saying “no, no, no.”

He smiled, though, when the audience repeatedly chanted “lock him up” in reference to Trump, who was convicted on felony charges in New York relating to his hush money payments to an adult film actress around the 2016 election. Trump frequently encouraged the same chant regarding his political opponents.

The Biden campaign and the White House did not immediately respond when asked if Biden condoned the chant.

Biden’s campaign has indirectly acknowledged that Biden’s route to the White House is narrowing, saying the so-called “blue wall” of Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania is now the “clearest pathway” to victory even while insisting other battleground states like Arizona and Nevada are not out of reach.

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Republished with permission of the Associated Press.