President Biden said Thursday he needs to ‘pace’ himself and insisted he should take on a more robust schedule ahead of the 2024 election, despite growing concern from members of his own party about whether he is fit to serve as president.

Biden’s comments about his schedule came during a NATO press conference as he fielded questions from reporters, one of whom asked about a recent New York Times report claiming Biden told Democratic governors in a private meeting at the White House that he would stop scheduling events after 8 p.m. so he could get more sleep.

‘That’s not true. What I said was, instead of my every day starting at 7 [a.m.] and going to bed at midnight, it would be smarter for me to pace myself a little more,’ the president said. ‘And I said, for example … instead of starting a fundraiser at 9 o’clock, start it at 8 o’clock. People get to go home by 10 [p.m.]. That’s what I’m talking about.’

Biden also appeared to take a shot at his own staff for adding additional events and appearances to his schedule, which resulted in him ‘catching hell’ from first lady Jill Biden.

‘The next debate I’m not going to be traveling in 15 time zones a week before. Anyway, that’s what it was about. That’s what it was about — and by the way, even with that, I love my staff, but they add things. They add things all the time. I’m catching hell from my wife,’ he added.

Biden urged reporters to look at what he has done since his disastrous debate performance against former President Trump on June 27, saying his ‘schedule has been full bore’ with ‘roughly 20 events, some with thousands of people showing up.’

In line with his vow to ‘pace’ himself, it appears things could slow down for the president over the next few days. The president, according to his schedule, plans to spend the weekend at the beach in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware – a popular retreat for the president during his tenure in the White House – after a campaign event in Michigan.

On Friday, the president will travel to Wayne County, Michigan, where he will participate in a campaign event at 6 p.m. Aside from the lone campaign event, the president’s Friday schedule appears to be clear. Most of his day will be spent traveling.

However, when he returns to work next week, the president will gear up for additional high-stakes interviews amid the Republican National Convention, which is taking place in Milwaukee from July 15 to 18.

Biden is slated to take part in a taped, one-on-one interview with ‘NBC Nightly News’ anchor Lester Holt on Monday from Austin, Texas. That interview, which will mark the president’s second cable news appearance since his rocky debate last month, will air in its entirety at 9 p.m. ET the same day.

The president will also take part in two additional interviews next week, according to Dylan Byers, a senior correspondent for Puck News.

Byers reported Thursday that Biden would take part in a Tuesday interview with a ‘Black national media outlet’ during the NAACP Conference, and another on Wednesday with a ‘Latino national media outlet.’

Those interviews will come as Biden continues his attempt to convince members of his own party, as well as voters from different corners of America who have concerns about his age and mental acuity, that he is up to the task of four more years in the White House.

A large majority of Americans want Biden to drop out of the race, including a majority of his own supporters, according to a Thursday poll from ABC News and the Washington Post that was released ahead of his press conference.

A full 67% of respondents said Biden should drop out of the race, and 85% say he is too old to serve out a second term. Meanwhile, 60% of respondents also said former President Trump is too old for a second term, up from 44% in the spring of 2023.

Among Democrats and voters who said they lean Democratic, 62% said Biden needs to drop out of the race. Even among self-professed Biden supporters, 54% said he needs to drop out.

Despite that, the poll found that Biden and Trump are virtually tied, despite voters’ lack of confidence in Biden, with 46% saying they would vote for the current president and 47% saying they support Trump.

A total of 18 elected Democrats have called on Biden to step aside in the White House race.

Fox News Digital’s Anders Hagstrom contributed to this report.

Congress’ first week back in session since President Biden’s disastrous debate performance brought with it a mountain of media scrutiny for his fellow Democrats — much to the relief of House Republicans who have grown used to being mobbed by reporters for much of this term.

‘We have really passed the baton of overthrowing political norms to the Democrats who are now running toward the greatest overthrow I’ve ever seen,’ one House GOP aide told Fox News Digital.

Party leaders hoped members would lie low this week to avoid making news as Democrats wrestled with demanding their own presidential nominee off the ballot less than six months away from the election, according to a House Republican granted anonymity to discuss it.

Meanwhile, a second House GOP aide cautioned, ‘All Republicans need to do is keep our heads down and stay out of it.’

The 118th Congress has been marked by intense infighting within the House GOP that’s dominated headlines over the last 18 months. Republican rebels ousted their own party’s House speaker for the first time in history, and factions of GOP lawmakers have used their slim majority to hold up House floor proceedings in order to extract concessions from leaders.

However, this past week, Republican lawmakers were largely ignored as reporters chased Democrats through the Capitol. 

‘I’ve gotta say, hasn’t been this much fun to be a House Republican since…well..yesterday. Monday was pretty cool too,’ Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., posted on X on Wednesday.

Meanwhile, Rep. Stephanie Bice, R-Okla., posted a photo of herself grinning alongside House GOP Conference Chairwoman Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., and Rep. Erin Houchin, R-Ind., and wrote, ‘Leaving the Speaker’s office, and for one of the first times in three and a half years, there were no press waiting to ask questions…. I wonder why?’

Rep. French Hill, R-Ark., told Fox News Digital of this week’s difference in attention, ‘It’s highly unusual to walk out of a House conference meeting and find zero reporters asking questions.’

Almost as if right on cue, Rep. Jim Himes, D-Conn., quipped jokingly from nearby, ‘Are we finally getting back to the press asking Republicans about their presidential candidate?’ 

Hours later, Himes became part of the now 18 House Democrats calling for Biden to step aside.

Meanwhile, others on the right are insisting that House Republicans should double-down on their own messaging while chaos ensues on the left.

‘Republicans are focused on the Republican platform and our own campaigns…and we’re letting the Democrats sort through their best strategy for Joe Biden,’ a second House GOP lawmaker granted anonymity told Fox News Digital.

House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., urged Republicans to continue hammering President Biden on policy, suggesting Democrats’ political strife is best left to themselves.

‘We need to be talking about the answers we have to all the great challenges that have been created by the policies of the Biden administration,’ he told Fox News Digital. ‘Our candidates have been very well in going out and presenting those answers in a very credible way. We feel very good about what we’re doing.’

A senior House GOP aide told Fox News Digital, ‘What happened this week required minimal effort on our part.’

‘Dems have needed no help imploding on their own. It’s genuinely shocking to see how ill-equipped their members have been at handling slightly uncomfortable hallway questions,’ the aide said.

However, not everyone on the right appreciates the silence. 

‘I actually like you guys. That’s why I’m a sucker, I enjoy talking to you all,’ the first House GOP lawmaker who spoke with Fox News Digital said with a smile.

Another Democratic lawmaker has weighed in on President Biden’s mental fortitude and whether he is capable of holding office for a second term.

Rep. James Clyburn, D-S.C., admitted to NBC in a Friday interview that Biden is not the same person as he was four years ago, but asserted that he is still ‘mentally’ fit with one of the ‘best minds’ he’s ever worked with.

‘You’re traveling with him next week, you’ve spent more time with the president than just about anybody else in the House, is this the same Joe Biden that we saw two years ago?’ interviewer Craig Melvin asked Clyburn, who had endorsed Biden in the 2020 presidential race. 

‘Well, look, I grew up in…’ Clyburn started to say before he was asked again, ‘Is it the same Joe Biden?’ 

‘No,’ Clyburn said emphatically, adding that, ‘I’m not the same Jim Clyburn that I was four years ago.’ 

Clyburn later said he doesn’t think Biden, physically, is the same as he was during the last presidential election cycle. 

‘Mentally, I do think so,’ Clyburn declared. ‘He is still grasping what this country is all about.’ 

‘He has one of the best minds that I have ever been around. The people who’ve been around him will tell you that, and so I would hope that we will focus on the substance of this man, rather than these sometimes, misspoken words and phrases, and how he has run this country.’

Biden faced a wave of mockery online Thursday after he introduced Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as ‘President Putin’ ahead of his press conference.

During the conference, Biden also referred to his Republican opponent, former President Donald Trump, as his vice-president.

Biden was peppered with questions from reporters who pressed him on whether he would step aside amid mounting pressure from members within his own party following his disastrous debate performance last month.

The president dismissed the notion he’s ‘slowing down’ and insisted he was ‘determined on running’ in this year’s election.

Fox News Digital’s Greg Norman and Brooke Singman contributed to this report. 

President Biden is now declaring he would leave the 2024 race for the White House if polls showed there was ‘no way’ he could win, after only a week ago saying it would take the ‘Lord Almighty’ for him to drop out.

The 81-year-old president is facing mounting calls to step aside from members of his own party amid concerns he does not have the physical or mental strength to beat former President Trump nor carry out another four-year term.

Biden took questions from reporters in an hourlong press conference Thursday night as he sought to allay those concerns. The event came on the heels of Washington, D.C.’s NATO summit, though the media’s questions largely focused on Biden’s re-election.

One reporter asked the president whether he would reconsider staying in the race if his own team presented data showing Vice President Kamala Harris doing better against Trump than himself.

‘No,’ Biden said. ‘Unless they came back and said, there’s no way you can win. Me.’

The president added in his trademark whisper, ‘There’s no one saying that. No poll says that.’

Nearly a week ago last Friday, however, he told ABC News host George Stephanopoulos that his political fate was up to deities rather than data.

Per the network’s unedited transcript of the interview, Biden said, when asked whether he would drop out if he was convinced by allies that he could not beat Trump, ‘It depends on- on if the Lord Almighty comes down and tells me that, I might do that.’

When pressed again, he insisted, ‘Look. I mean, if the Lord Almighty came down and said, ‘Joe, get outta the race,’ I’d get outta the race. The Lord Almighty’s not comin’ down.’

Fox News Digital reached out to the Biden campaign for comment.

A new NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll released Friday morning shows Biden two points ahead of Trump in a head-to-head rematch, though Trump is one percentage point above Biden when factoring in third-party options. Both results fell within the survey’s 3.1% margin of error.

Several of Biden’s supporters lauded his press conference performance Thursday night, arguing he showed a commanding and clear sense of foreign policy experience. Rep. Steve Cohen, D-Tenn., told CNN’s Anderson Cooper, ‘I think he convinced a lot of people he should stay in the race.’

For others, however, it was too late. Three more House Democrats called on Biden to step aside after the press conference, including Rep. Jim Himes, D-Conn., the top Democrat on the House permanent select committee on Intelligence.

As of Friday morning, there are 20 Congressional Democrats who have publicly called on Biden to drop out.

Former President Donald Trump maintains a lead over President Biden following the latter’s disastrous debate performance last month, according to a new Pew Research Center survey.

According to the poll, Trump currently holds an approval rate of 44%, while Biden trails with 40% — with Trump leading Biden by double digits on three key issues.

Approximately 68% of respondents told Pew Research that they are generally unsatisfied with their available choices for the presidential election.

The report published Thursday is Pew’s first to come out since Biden’s confused and sometimes unintelligible performance at the first 2024 presidential debate.

Only about 24% of voters describe Biden as ‘mentally sharp’ — a 6 point drop since January and a whopping 22% decline since Oct. 2020, according to Pew. Approximately 58% of respondents described Trump as such.

Trump’s advantage over Biden comes from his dominant position on three issues important to voters: immigration, the economy and foreign policy. 

Trump holds a 17 point lead over Biden on immigration policy (52-35%), a 14 point lead over Biden on economic policy (54-40%), and a 10 point lead on foreign policy (49-39).

Biden netted an 8 point advantage over Trump on bipartisanship (40-32%) and a 4 point advantage on abortion issues (48-44%).

Third-party candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. received one of his largest cuts of the electorate in a major poll yet, netting 15% of respondents.

The Pew survey was conducted by live interviewers online or by telephone between July 1 and July 7. Pew Research Center contacted 9,424 adults, 7,729 of which were registered voters.

The pool of respondents was weighted to represent ‘gender, race, ethnicity, partisan affiliation, education and other factors’ in the U.S. adult population. The poll has a margin of error of approximately 1.3 percentage points.

A former Democrat lawmaker in South Carolina, who has donated thousands of dollars to President Biden’s re-election campaign, warned about Biden’s age in 2019 while supporting Vice President Kamala Harris’s failed presidential campaign.

‘Joe Biden has been running for president since before I was born,’ Bakari Sellers told Politico in 2019 while serving as a surrogate for the Harris campaign.

‘Joe Biden is nearly 80 years old and he’s running to be president of the United States,’ Sellers said. ‘My dad was president of an HBCU and will be 75 this year and his doctors told him he couldn’t do it anymore.’

Sellers, a CNN political analyst who formerly served in South Carolina’s House of Representatives from 2006 to 2014, said his dad, who served for 7 years as the president of Voorhees College, a South Carolina historically black college, ‘didn’t have the energy and strength to lead that campus anymore.’ He went on to say it ‘doesn’t mean he wasn’t a great man and a great leader and a great visionary.’

‘It is a justifiable conversation,’ he continued.

Sellers also took aim at presidential candidates Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren over age concerns during the Democratic presidential primary in 2019.

‘The three front-runners are all older than Ronald Reagan was when he took over,’ Sellers said. ‘Democrats are afraid of criticism, which is silly to me. But we are going to have a contentious primary on vigor and issues about fitness to be president.’

Sellers, who donated $10,000 to the Biden Victory Fund and $6,600 to Biden’s re-election campaign last year, making him a maxed-out donor, has repeatedly defended Biden against criticisms about his age in recent weeks, including this week when he said it was ‘patently absurd’ to be having a discussion about a Parkinsons specialist visiting the White House.

On Thursday night, Sellers responded to Biden’s hour-long press conference by posting on X that Biden was ‘doing well’ and reposted a post from NBC analyst Vin Gupta, a doctor, defending Biden’s press conference.

‘[Biden] demonstrated tonight that he continues to function at a high-level for his age,’ Gupta said. ‘Yes, he had gaffes, which he’s been prone to throughout his career. Yet the substance was there after a series of tough questions, ably demonstrating breadth of experience. Strong performance.’

‘Biden would not only have to not run but he’d have to resign. Neither of which is happening,’ Sellers said last week. ‘Any article about his age that is absent the fact he’s accomplished bipartisan, put black woman on Supreme Court, brought economy back from brink after COVID is an emotional play. Because it’s clear even in his age he can do the job of POTUS.’

One of Sellers’ most notable defenses of Biden occurred less than an hour after the CNN debate between Biden and former President Trump.

‘Biden ain’t going nowhere. It’s June. Let go of your pearls and dry your bed. He lost a debate. Bad. But it’s June. You’re not replacing him,’ Sellers posted on June 27 on X. ‘So leave your random combinations in your chats. You’re not nominating Gretch or Gavin or Wes over Kamala. Stop it. Organize. Vote. We are winning every swing state senate race and gubernatorial race (NC). Relax.’

‘Choice is Trump, Biden or couch. I choose Joe. Night. Night,’ he continued.

Fox News Digital reached out to Sellers for comment but did not receive a response..