Biden REFUSES to drop out and even commits to a SECOND debate with Trump in September after trainwreck... as Hillary reacts to his disastrous performance

By Morgan Phillips, Congress reporter

Nancy Pelosi defended President Joe Biden’s disastrous debate performance on Thursday night and brushed off the widespread Democratic panic.

The former House Speaker revealed she hadn’t spoken to the president since his face-off with Donald Trump, but insisted the party doesn’t need a new nominee.

She admitted Biden’s performance ‘wasn’t great,' but ‘outshone Trump’ when it came to ‘values.'

Hillary Clinton weighed in after the presidential debate saying she will still be voting for President Biden.

The former Democratic presidential nominee said the choice in the election is very simple.

'It's a choice between someone who cares about you—your rights, your prospects, your future—versus someone who's only in it for himself,' she wrote on X.

President Biden will not drop out of the 2024 race and is committed to the second presidential debate scheduled for September, according to campaign operatives.

ABC News is set to host the second debate on Tuesday, September 10 at 9 p.m. ET.

Nikki Schwab, Chief Campaign Correspondent in Raleigh, North Carolina

A duo of Democratic-leaning rappers performed ahead of President Joe Biden at his high-stakes rally Friday in Raleigh where he's expected to address last night's debate.

E-40 and Fat Joe took the stage, each performing two songs, including Fat Joe's 'Lean Back.'

They pumped up a crowd where attendees expressed concerns about the president's debate performance.

No Biden supporters DailyMail.com spoke with, however, said they planned to change their vote to former President Donald Trump.

From Rob Crilly, Chief U.S. Political Correspondent

Our pollster, J.L. Partners, asked 805 independent voters after the debate for one or two words to sum up how listening to Joe Biden made them feel.

The results could not be more devastating: Concerned, worried, sad, were the top words.

It didn't sound as if they were describing the leader of the free world, the most powerful man in the world. It sounded as if they were describing their feelings, their fears, about an ageing relative.

Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna issued an eye-opening rebuttal to Joe Biden's debate performance on Thursday night.

Speaking on Capitol Hill, Khanna said the president had a 'great team' who can 'help him', suggesting he will continue to back the string-pullers in the White House.

By Nikki Schwab, Chief Campaign Correspondent in Raleigh, North Carolina

President Joe Biden will headline a rally in Raleigh today as his fate as the Democratic nominee is being questioned after last night's poor debate performance.

It was to be a splitscreen moment - with Biden in North Carolina, a state he wishes to flip from former President Donald Trump's column - and Trump in Virginia, a state the Republican hopes to steal back, despite losing it in 2020 by 10 points.

Trump is expected to have a large rally crowd in Chesapeake, Virginia - a community just outside of Norfolk and Virginia Beach.

Biden's event - which is only utilizing about a sixth of the floor space in a larger venue at the North Carolina fairgrounds - will attract rappers Fat Joe and E-40.

Buckle up...the last day of the Supreme Court's term is officially on Monday.

We will get a ruling then on whether Trump has immunity from federal prosecution for his actions in office.

The Supreme Court ruled that there are limits on charging January 6 rioters with obstruction, in a case that will impact former President Trump's 2020 federal election interference case.

The decision could upend hundreds of cases stemming from the January 6 riot, including Donald Trump's election fraud trial.

The court's ruling makes it harder for January 6 defendants to be charged with obstructing an official proceeding.

That is among the four charges facing former President Donald Trump in Special Counsel Jack Smith's federal case.

Robert Kennedy Jr. was forced to hold a solo event on Thursday night as Donald Trump went head-to-head with Joe Biden, but more than half of independent voters said he should have been allowed to join the top candidates on the debate stage.

RFK Jr. failed to meet the criteria for the debate, falling short of the 15 percent polling threshold and state ballot access required by CNN, which hosted the event.

Only 22 percent said he should not have been there.

The results will provide a lift to Kennedy, an environmental lawyer with an anti-vaccine message, who is running as an alternative to the two main candidates.

Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, said he will put forth a House resolution to call on Vice President Kamala Harris to invoke the 25th Amendment after Biden's debate performance.

'I intend to put forth a resolution calling upon the @VP to immediately use her powers under section 4 of the 25th Amendment to convene & mobilize the principal officers of the Cabinet to declare the @POTUS is unable to successfully discharge the duties and powers of his office,' Roy wrote on X.

The 25th Amendment, which outlines presidential succession, gives the vice president and Cabinet power to remove the commander in chief from office via a majority vote in the event it's determined he or she is no longer fit for office.

The Supreme Court included a prominent typo in the name of a critical court case as it wraps up its term – days after the accidental release of a draft opinion on abortion.

This time, the court mistakenly called an opinion City of Grant Pass v. Johnson on its web site. In fact, the city is called Grants Pass. (The opinion itself got the name right).

It comes a day after the court had to issue a correction for a majority opinion authored by Justice Neil Gorsuch that confused an air pollutant with laughing gas in the case of Ohio v. Environmental Protection Agency.

Gorsuch referred repeatedly to ‘nitrous oxide’ – laughing gas – rather than ‘nitrogen oxide,’ the air pollutant in a ruling that blocked an EPA’s ‘Good Neighbor’ plan to reduce smog in downwind states.

The case dealt with federal regulatory boundaries. Chief Justice John Roberts issued the decision on Friday morning.

This opinion claws back expansive federal power - which will have major impacts over all aspects of American lives.

Roberts said on the bench that the decision 'ends our 40-year misadventure with Chevron deference.'

The first Supreme Court decision of the day has just been delivered.

It had to do with whether homeless can be punished for occupying public spaces.

The Supreme Court announced it will issue decisions on Friday and Monday. It is rare that the court extended its term into July, they usually try and aim to wrap up by the end of June.

There are several blockbuster cases left this term:

Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman blasted ‘vultures’ in his party after operatives and media figures panicked over Biden’s debate performance with some calling for him to withdraw to avoid a loss

‘I refuse to join the Democratic vultures on Biden’s shoulder after the debate. No one knows more than me that a rough debate is not the sum total of the person and their record,’ wrote Fetterman, who himself won reelection while suffering the after-effects of a stroke.

He referenced ‘morning-after thermonuclear beat downs’ in his own race and took on ‘polling geniuses’ who doubted him. ‘And what happened? The only seat to flip and won by a historic margin (+5). Chill the f*** out.’

Democrats are known for bed-wetting ahead of elections, but the panic mode has shot to another level following President Biden's cringey debate performance in Atlanta.

The president's flubbed answer and pause just minutes into the debate drew an audible gasp from some watching and set off a flurry of frantic text messages of alarm.

Some even took to social media to voice their concerns publicly.

'Obviously that debate was a f***ing disaster. We have to beat Donald Trump. We have to have a nominee who can do that,' wrote former Obama speechwriter Jon Favreau on X.

'It's kind of a DEFCON 1 moment,' Obama 2008 campaign manager David Plouffe said on MSNBC following the debate. He went on that what really matters is how the voters react.

Politico reported some Biden aides found the president's peformance so concerning, they spent the night updating their LinkedIns.

The House's top Democrat Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., gave a curt 'no' when asked by reporters whether Biden should step aside from the top of the ticket after his debate performance last night.

Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., meanwhile, claimed that Democrats on Capitol Hill are 'in full five-alarm fire.'

'They're deeply concerned. They are saying the quiet parts out loud.'

The Biden campaign suffered devastating TV commentary in the minutes after the end of the presidential debate Thurdsay night, and the hits kept coming Friday morning as Americans woke up to digest the news.

‘A lot of people needed a drink after last night,’ said CBS This Morning host Gayle King at the top of her broadcast.

‘He had one job to do last night, Bob. Just one, really,’ she told correspondent Robert Costa in obvious frustration, as he reported there was not an organized Democratic push to get Biden to relinquish the nomination despite his halting performance.

Sarah Ewall-Wice, Senior U.S. Political Reporter

President Biden and Donald Trump hit the campaign trail to rally supporters one day after their face-to-face on the debate stage in Atlanta.

Biden headed to Raleigh, North Carolina late Thursday night for a campaign rally Friday afternoon. He is joined there by First Lady Jill Biden.

The Biden campaign sees North Carolina as a battleground state they could possibly flip blue come November.

Trump is set to deliver remarks on Friday afternoon in Chesapeake, VA near Virginia Beach.

He lost Virginia to Democrats in both 2016 and 2020, but the state elected a Republican governor in 2021. Trump's team sees the state in play in November.

The ex-president will be joined at his event by GOP Governor Glenn Youngkin.

By Geoff Earle, Deputy U.S. Political Editor in Atlanta

Pennsylvania’s telegenic Gov. Josh Shapiro took to the airwaves hours after Joe Biden’s debate flop to tell members of his party to ‘stop worrying’ and rally behind the presumtive nominee.

Shapiro, 51, appeared as a Biden campaign surrogate after key Democratic operatives hit the panic button after the president’s halting performance and influential columnist Tom Friedman called for Biden’s performance ‘heartbreaking’ and said he had ‘no business running for reelection.’

‘I would say to all those folks that are out there worrying right now? Start working and stop worrying,’ he told CNN. He acknowledged Biden had a ‘bad night’ and said the campaign needed a ‘crisper message.’

‘It ain’t easy debating a pathological liar,’ he said. Then he blamed the debate hosts, after Biden stumbled and lost his train of thought in many of his answers, staring downward at times while Trump blasted his record, and according to fact checkers made multiple false statements. ‘I think CNN could have done a better job of calling those lies out,’ he said.

New York Democrat Rep. Ritchie Torres was unimpressed with either candidate's performance last night.

The first presidential debate showdown of 2024 was full of extraordinary moments.

From the start, President Biden's advanced age was on full display after he froze mid-sentence just 12 minutes in. He also repeatedly cleared his throat due to a cold.

That was just the beginning of his blunders and mumblings throughout the debate that has sent Democrats into full-blown panic mode, leading some to say Biden should be replaced on the top of the 2024 ticket.

Democratic and Republican political experts almost all agreed on who clearly ended up on top at the end of the night. DailyMail.com breaks down analysis from top political minds:

An exclusive poll for DailyMail.com found that a clear majority of independent voters believe President Joe Biden should no longer be the Democratic nominee after a car-crash debate with Donald Trump.

Some 62 percent said he should be dumped from the ticket.

Biden looked all of his 81 years on Thursday night as he repeatedly lost his train of thought and meandered into silence.