Well, that was another week mostly wasted.

This isn't just our opinion, either. Here is what Biden campaign chair Jen O'Malley Dillon had to say in an all-staff call yesterday:

We had two very, very, very hard weeks, very bad weeks. I told you I'd level with you; they've been bad fucking weeks. This two-week window has really sucked, and it is hard, there is no doubt about it.

This week began (since our weeks here are divided by when this column is published) with President Joe Biden sitting down for an interview with George Stephanopoulos last Friday night. The whole thing lasted only 22 minutes, and while Biden did do a better job than he did at his trainwreck of a debate, that's not really saying much.

Biden was a little shaky here and there, but avoided any gigantic face-plant moments. The big takeaway from the interview was that Stephanopoulos pressed Biden very hard on the questions of whether he was fit to serve another four years, whether he could beat Donald Trump, and whether staying in the race was the right thing to do -- while Biden responded with defiance. He was ready for another term, Biden insisted. He was the best Democrat to make the case against Trump (and he would beat Trump in November), and he was not going anywhere, thank you very much.

The most notable line from the interview came when Stephanopoulos asked him what it would take for him to change his mind. Biden responded: "If the Lord Almighty came down and said, 'Joe, get out of the race,' I'd get out of the race," and then followed this up with a confident prediction: "The Lord Almighty's not coming down." That sets the bar awfully high, you've got to admit. Nothing short of divine intervention, in fact.

Biden also disappointed many with his answer to the question of how he would feel if he stayed in the race and Trump won anyway: "I'll feel as long as I gave it my all and I did the good as job [sic] as I know I can do, that's what this is about" (there was even a media kerfuffle about the wording, since ABC's original transcript read: "goodest job," but neither one is grammatically correct, we hasten to point out). Biden was criticized (to put it mildly) for treating the entire future of American democracy as some sort of contest where a participation award would be good enough.

Biden gave a decent interview, all around, but he definitely didn't knock it out of the park, and the doubts continued. Throughout all of this week there has been a slow but steady trickle of Democrats in Congress putting out public announcements calling on Biden to step down as the party's presidential nominee. Two more House members did so today, bringing the total up to (as of this writing) 22 congressional Democrats who have done so (21 House Democrats and one Democratic senator). No Democratic governors have issued such statements. This is roughly ten percent of the House Democrats and four percent of the Senate Democrats, to put the numbers in perspective.

To put this another way: the dam has not burst yet. But the trickle continues.

Other voices, from people who do not actually hold office or are politicians, have chimed in as well. A "prominent group of political donors, civic leaders and business executives founded to protect the institutions of American democracy" sent a letter to Biden last Friday (before his interview) urging him to withdraw from the race. But the biggest name to do so this week was George Clooney, who wrote an opinion piece for the New York Times titled: "I Love Joe Biden. But We Need A New Nominee." Clooney recently held a fundraiser for Biden with the Hollywood elite that raised an absolute mountain of cash. And his piece did not pull any punches:

But the one battle [President Joe Biden] cannot win is the fight against time. None of us can. It's devastating to say it, but the Joe Biden I was with three weeks ago at the fund-raiser was not the Joe "big F-ing deal" Biden of 2010. He wasn't even the Joe Biden of 2020. He was the same man we all witnessed at the debate.

Was he tired? Yes. A cold? Maybe. But our party leaders need to stop telling us that 51 million people didn't see what we just saw. We're all so terrified by the prospect of a second Trump term that we've opted to ignore every warning sign. The George Stephanopoulos interview only reinforced what we saw the week before. As Democrats, we collectively hold our breath or turn down the volume whenever we see the president, whom we respect, walk off Air Force One or walk back to a mic to answer an unscripted question.

Is it fair to point these things out? It has to be. This is about age. Nothing more. But also nothing that can be reversed. We are not going to win in November with this president. On top of that, we won't win the House, and we're going to lose the Senate. This isn't only my opinion; this is the opinion of every senator and Congress member and governor who I've spoken with in private. Every single one, irrespective of what he or she is saying publicly.

Clooney closed by calling for the national convention to choose from several possible candidates, and presented this as a positive thing for the party:

Would it be messy? Yes. Democracy is messy. But would it enliven our party and wake up voters who, long before the June debate, had already checked out? It sure would. The short ramp to Election Day would be a benefit for us, not a danger. It would give us the chance to showcase the future without so much opposition research and negative campaigning that comes with these ridiculously long and expensive election seasons. This can be an exciting time for democracy, as we've just seen with the 200 or so French candidates who stepped aside and put their personal ambitions on hold to save their democracy from the far right.

Joe Biden is a hero; he saved democracy in 2020. We need him to do it again in 2024.

Other prominent people who have joined in the call for Biden to step aside include James Carville and Ashley Judd. Also, the New York Times published an editorial calling for other Democrats to speak some truth to Biden and tell him to step aside.

But let's get back to the week that was. Last Sunday, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries held a meeting with all the ranking members of House committees. It was immediately leaked that four of them openly called for Biden to get out of the race. At least one of these followed up with a public statement later in the week. Senator Mark Warner tried to convene an in-person meeting of Senate Democrats who were leaning towards urging Biden to get out, but the existence of the meeting was leaked, so Warner called it off at the last minute.

Monday morning, the Biden White House pushed back. Biden released a letter to Democratic members of Congress stating unequivocally that he wasn't going to drop out and demanding they all get back on board and stop the disunity. This letter ended with:

The question of how to move forward has been well-aired for over a week now. And it's time for it to end. We have one job. And that is to beat Donald Trump. We have 42 days to the Democratic Convention and 119 days to the general election. Any weakening of resolve or lack of clarity about the task ahead only helps Trump and hurts us. It is time to come together, move forward as a unified party, and defeat Donald Trump.

This letter did have some effect, and those who still support Biden's continued candidacy got bolder about coming out and saying so in public. Even Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and other members of The Squad expressed their support, but the biggest vote of confidence came from the Congressional Black Caucus. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer also has been supporting Biden throughout, but a note of indecision was tossed into the mix by Nancy Pelosi, in an interview where she repeatedly called for Biden to make a decision, even though from all appearances he has already made that decision. Pelosi's voice still carries a lot of weight, so this uncertainty got a lot of press attention.

On Tuesday, the Democratic caucuses in both houses met. A New York Times story about these meetings was titled: "On Capitol Hill, Democrats Panic About Biden But Do Nothing," which pretty much sums it all up. A lot of feelings were vented in private, but when they emerged, not much had changed. The trickle of members calling on Biden to step down continued, slowly, but there were no mass defections. The dam held. But feelings are running high, as the end of the article pointed out:

Longtime party loyalists said they were now reduced to hoping for another major public misstep by Mr. Biden, such as a serious stumble at his NATO news conference, to either persuade reticent members of Congress to speak out or to convince the president that he should leave the race on his own.

The stance struck the lone-wolf Democrats who have stuck their necks out to publicly call for Mr. Biden to step aside as preposterous -- and even dangerous.

"The idea that we are going to slow-walk into fascism because we don't want to hurt somebody that we respect's feelings -- I cannot even begin to tell you how angry that makes me," said Representative Adam Smith of Washington, the ranking member of the Armed Services Committee and one of seven House Democrats to publicly call on Mr. Biden to step aside.

On Wednesday, the first Democratic senator called for Biden to withdraw. Senator Peter Welch of Vermont wrote an opinion piece published in the Washington Post calling on Biden to step aside. But just because no other senator has publicly made this call, it doesn't mean the rest of them are solidly behind Biden. Here is what Senator Michael Bennet had to say this week, in an interview with CNN:

This race is on a trajectory that is very worrisome, if you care about the future of this country. Joe Biden was nine points up at this time -- the last time he was running. Hillary Clinton was five points up. This is the first time in more than 20 years that a Republican president has been up in this part of the campaign. Donald Trump is on track, I think, to win this election, and maybe win it by a landslide, and take with him the Senate and the House.

He's not the only one out there expressing such serious doubts, but without taking the final step of issuing a public statement calling on Biden to step aside.

One interesting development in all this, although so far it hasn't started a general movement or anything, was Michigan's Governor Gretchen Whitmer stating that she would not run against Kamala Harris, if Biden were to step aside. This was followed by California's Governor Gavin Newsom making the same pledge. These are two of the biggest names being bandied about as possible Biden replacements, and their pledges (if they follow through on them, which is not guaranteed, as we wrote about earlier this week) are already starting to clear the field for a possible Harris nomination at the convention. This could ease a lot of Democratic fears if it happens, but as we said so far no other possible candidates have followed the lead of Whitmer and Newsom.

Team Biden has reportedly been doing some quiet polling on Harris, to explore how she does against Trump in comparison to how Biden is doing. Independent polls have come out showing Harris doing slightly better -- but that slight difference was enough to put her ahead of Trump while Biden is slightly behind. Harris is a rather polarizing figure in the Democratic Party -- not for any real ideological reason, but in terms of confidence that she could win a presidential election. Her rather shaky performance in the 2020 race is seen as worrisome to many, as well as the built-in sexism and racism she would have to face in the electorate. But so far at least she seems to be holding her own. We fully expect to soon see more and more polling on the question of Harris (as well as other possible contenders).

Of course, throughout all of this Biden still has a day job, and this week he hosted the 75th anniversary of the formation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Biden gave a forceful and impressive speech at the start of the multiday meetings, but what everyone was really waiting for was the end, when Biden scheduled a solo press conference.

Yesterday's presser lasted about an hour, which is a fairly standard amount of time for such events, and Biden did better than both his debate performance and even the ABC interview last Friday. He cogently spoke of America's foreign policy in great detail, he outlined his plans for the future, and he contrasted his record as president to what Donald Trump would do if he got back in the Oval Office. He was not as forceful as his speech opening the NATO conference, but all around it was a pretty good presser for Biden (we wrote our review of it last night, in case anyone's interested).

But of course because of where we are politically right now, the media focus wasn't on the good answers Biden gave but rather on the gaffes he made. This is where we are now, folks, with a press corps endlessly waiting for the other shoe to drop. And they're not the only ones -- plenty of Democratic politicians were secretly hoping Biden would fall flat on his face at some point, because then calling for him to step aside would have gotten a lot easier for them to do.

That didn't happen. Biden was a little stumbly and a little shaky in some of his answers, but he had no "brain freeze" moments (as he did in the debate), and he never completely lost his train of thought or branched out into bizarre tangents. He made a few flubs with numbers and names, but he caught almost all of them and corrected them in real time. All around, if we weren't in the middle of the presidential campaign, Biden's presser would have been wholly unremarkable and wouldn't have generated much press attention at all.

But because Biden is indeed under the media microscope, the clip everyone is seeing played today was the worst name mixup Biden had. It came early, in the answer to the very first question Biden took. In answering a question about his political future, Biden tried to mention his vice president, Kamala Harris. Unfortunately, what came out of his mouth was: "Vice President Trump."

Now, personally we can't judge this in the "total face-plant" category, but it is a little worrisome because it came on top of a different flub, earlier in the day. Biden seems to get his wires crossed when he is thinking about two people who are in contention with each other, which is not an uncommon thing to happen to anyone, but with Biden being scrutinized so closely it does bear mentioning. When, earlier, Biden was trying to introduce the Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky, he instead referred to him as "President Putin." To his credit, Biden immediately realized his colossal mistake and corrected it with a sort of apology to Zelensky (who took it in stride).

However, Biden didn't catch his "Vice President Trump" mistake on the fly. Trump, of course, mocked his gaffe online, to which Biden responded on social media: "Yes, I know the difference. One's a prosecutor, and the other's a felon." That's a pretty good comeback, we have to admit, but Biden by this point was playing defense.

Which really sums the entire situation up. Joe Biden is being forced to play defense, instead of getting his message out of what a disaster a second Trump presidency would truly be. For the second week in a row, the entire story has been whether Biden will drop out or not.

On the one hand, this has all but shoved Donald Trump off the political stage -- which is a very hard feat to accomplish. This is even more notable because the Republican National Convention opens on Monday, and Trump has been trying to whip up interest by teasing a possible announcement about who his running mate will be. Even that wasn't enough to budget the media needle, though -- which is rather remarkable in and of itself. And Biden's next big test will come in another primetime interview, this time with NBC's Lester Holt, which will air Monday night -- the first night of the GOP convention. That is somewhat of a public relations coup for Biden.

But it's for all the wrong reasons, really. The entire Democratic Party now exists in a sort of Limbo, awaiting whatever comes next. If Biden does stay in the race, it will be an endless cycle of these events being held up as make-or-break for him, but as we mentioned yesterday the "break" part is the one that's really true. Biden could tank his candidacy at any time (should he turn in a performance on a par with his debate meltdown) but it's hard to see how anything he does at this point would truly calm all the fears some Democrats now have. We're all breathlessly watching for the next shoe to drop, to put it another way. Which is not the ideal way to run a political campaign.

Perhaps Biden could turn things around by a string of very solid appearances. Perhaps the feelings of panic will begin to fade among Democrats. Perhaps his poll numbers will prove that Biden is right about him still having a viable chance at beating Trump. Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps.

Biden might even be able to get his campaign message out during all these appearances (which are garnering some outsized audiences -- his presser last night drew an audience of 23 million people, which is more than watched the Oscars this year). Biden certainly has been attempting to turn all of these appearances into campaign events, every chance he gets (to his credit). So maybe he can turn it all into a positive eventually, as more and more people hear him make the case for his re-election.

As things stand now, though, the situation has taken on the feeling of a deathwatch. We have been constantly checking to see if more congressional Democrats have made the call for Biden to step down -- to see whether the trickle will indeed develop into a dam-bursting moment at some point. Once again, we have now devoted out entire Friday column to the issue, since being in this Limbo seemed far more important than our weekly awards and talking points. We would like to be freed from this Limbo one way or another, but so far we remain trapped with everyone else who wants to see Trump lose again in November.

Which is why we're going to end exactly where we began. Because Biden's campaign chair truly did put it best, summing up where we all are right now:

We had two very, very, very hard weeks, very bad weeks. I told you I'd level with you; they've been bad fucking weeks. This two-week window has really sucked, and it is hard, there is no doubt about it.

Let's hope next week is somehow better.

-- Chris Weigant

Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant