More top Democrats are vehemently shifting away from President Joe Biden after a disastrous debate performance last month revealed key issues with the chief executive’s age.

The number of lawmakers who believed that Biden should throw in the towel in the 2024 race outweighed the amount backing his decision to stay in during a Democratic leadership call on Sunday afternoon. At least four more prominent Democratic representatives joined a growing chorus urging Biden to step out, reported NBC News. Those lawmakers included New York Representatives Jerry Nadler and Joe Morelle, California Representative Mark Takano, and Washington Representative Adam Smith. All four men serve as the ranking members on powerful House committees.

But even lawmakers who didn’t outright agree that the former president’s place on the November ballot was compromised thoroughly questioned his ability to retake the White House for a second term. Maryland Representative Jamie Raskin, Virginia Representative Don Beyer, and Connecticut Representative Jim Himes expressed concerns that Biden was not the strongest candidate the party could put forward.

Most lawmakers on the call believed that Vice President Kamala Harris would be a stronger option at the top of the ticket, calling her the obvious choice to replace Biden should he leave the race.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries held the hour-long call with the Democratic brass but did not weigh in with his opinion on the movement to oust Biden, according to CNN.

Last week, Representatives Lloyd Doggett, Raúl Grijalva, and Seth Moulton formally called on the president to exit the race. But many more have signaled their preference in subtler ways, including legacy politicians such as Senator Sheldon Whitehouse and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the latter of whom suggested that growing concern over both candidates’ ages was a “legitimate question.”

Panic over Biden’s age and ability has consumed the Democratic Party since the president’s abysmal debate performance last week, during which he appeared dumbfounded and frail through the majority of his first 2024 match-up against Donald Trump. Since the face-off, droves of private sector leaders, donors, and consultants have urged Biden to call it quits, looking for spontaneous alternatives to a candidate that they openly describe as “comatose” and “dead.”

Donald Trump’s lawyers on Friday used the Supreme Court’s immunity ruling—and Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’s concurring opinion—to argue that his entire classified documents case should be put on hold until the constitutionality of special counsel Jack Smith’s appointment is clarified.

Trump’s legal team filed a notice of supplemental authority asking the Trump-appointed Cannon to review Smith’s qualifications to pursue the case, citing Thomas’s opinion that questioned whether Smith was legally appointed to his position.

“Highlighting grave separation-of-powers concerns, Justice Thomas suggested that [U.S. penal code 28 subsections 515 and 533] do not establish ‘by Law’ Jack Smith’s position under the Appointments Clause,” the motion states.

In an ouroboros of conservative chaos, Thomas’s questioning follows Trump’s lawyers crafting that argument to Cannon, which The New York Times describes as one of the “far-fetched issues” Trump’s team has raised in an effort to remove Smith from the case. A notice of supplemental authority is essentially a summary of notable concerns addressed in oral arguments, meaning Trump’s lawyers argued against Smith being on the case, which Thomas in his concurrent Supreme Court opinion that ruled in Trump’s favor also floated, which Trump’s lawyers then used as support for their argument to remove Smith.

The notice follows hearings held by Cannon exploring whether Smith was legally appointed. The crux of the argument from Trump’s lawyers (and Thomas) is that special prosecutors have so much power, they should be voted into their roles by Congress and that Smith’s appointment is unconstitutional—even though settled law states the attorney general can appoint a special prosecutor and they are accountable to the attorney general.

“The legal issues and questions she claims to be struggling with are quite basic,” Joëlle Anne Moreno, a law professor at Florida International University, told The New York Times in June. “Most judges would consider many of the defense arguments to be meritless.”

Cannon has struggled with basic law concepts, is reportedly prone to exploitation due to her inexperience, and has shown unusual deference for Trump—including intervening in a Trump lawsuit arguing the classified documents he kept were his personal property, which Cannon ruled in his favor only for it to be overturned. That failed intervention provoked calls from more experienced judges to encourage Cannon to pass the case over to a better qualified judge when it was assigned to her in 2023, which she refused. Cannon also postponed the case indefinitely in May, and has spent weeks entertaining questions about Smith’s qualifications and funding with ineptitude that legal experts have described as “bonkers.”

Virginia Senator Mark Warner is looking to assemble a supergroup of Democratic lawmakers to force President Joe Biden out of the 2024 presidential race.

The Old Dominion senator has told people that he no longer believes Biden has enough sway with voters to prevent another Donald Trump presidency, according to two sources that spoke with The Washington Post with the condition of anonymity.

Warner’s spokesperson Rachel Cohen refused to either confirm or deny Warner’s current beliefs about Biden’s ability. “Like many other people in Washington and across the country, Senator Warner believes these are critical days for the president’s campaign, and he has made that clear to the White House,” Cohen told the Post.

So far, Representatives Lloyd Doggett, Raúl Grijalva, and Seth Moulton have formally called on the president to exit the race, but many more have signaled their........

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