Multiple ranking Democrats on House committees want Biden to step aside

Democrats met behind closed doors Sunday as pressure mounted on President Biden to drop out of the race.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., held a virtual meeting with ranking Democrats on House panels Sunday afternoon.

Fox News learned that multiple Democrats on House committees expressed concerns about the viability of Biden continuing to run for re-election against former President Trump.

Fox is told the consensus among most Democrats on the call who suggested Biden should abandon the race was that the party should focus on Vice President Kamala Harris as a potential successor.

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Reps. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y.; Mark Takano, D-Calif.; Don Beyer, D-Va.; and Adam Smith, D-Wash., expressed privately that Biden should exit the presidential race as the Democratic nominee on Sunday. Most of them also reportedly said Harris should be the nominee, two people familiar with the meeting told The Associated Press. 

Following reports on the meeting, Beyer issued a statement. 

"I support President Biden. I support the Biden-Harris ticket, and look forward to helping defeat Donald Trump in November," the representative said. "I was proud to host an event this week in Northern Virginia with the President, and will continue doing all I can to support the Biden-Harris campaign in Virginia and across the country."

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The meeting was proposed after Biden's 22-minute interview with ABC News on Friday, which the Biden campaign hoped would ease fears that the president doesn't have what it takes to continue the campaign and defeat former President Donald Trump.

Instead, the interview set off a new round of fears among Democrats who were already concerned by Biden's disastrous debate performance.

"Look, Biden looked better and certainly more coherent than he looked during the debate, but there's nothing in this interview that is calming the nerves of jittery Democrats who fear that Joe Biden is on a trajectory to lose this race, to lose to Donald Trump," ABC News chief Washington correspondent Jonathan Karl said after the interview.

Biden, however, struck a defiant tone, saying at one point that he would not drop out unless "the Lord Almighty were to come down and say, ‘Joe, get outta the race.'"

Fox News Digital's Landon Mion and The Associated Press contributed to this report.