President Biden said in a new interview that he would considering dropping out if he was diagnosed with a “medical condition” by doctors — giving his clearest sign yet of faltering in his insistence he will seek a second term.
The 81-year-old president made the remark in a BET interview taped Tuesday when asked what it would take to prompt him to reconsider his candidacy.
“If I had some medical condition that emerged, if somebody, if doctors came to me and said, you got this problem and that problem,” Biden said in an excerpt released Wednesday.
Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) became the 21st House Democrat to call on Biden to step aside Wednesday, saying that “it is time for him to pass the torch.”
Biden thus far has refused to consider retiring despite a groundswell of concern from Democrats that his unsteady, confused debate performance on June 27 sets him on track for a landslide loss on Nov. 5 against former President Donald Trump, the 78-year-old Republican nominee.
Many doctors who studied Biden’s public remarks said that he may have Parkinson’s disease or a related condition.
