The pressure is growing on President Biden from within his own Democratic Party to step aside in this race. Now, this afternoon, House Minority Leader, Hakeem Jeffrey, held a Zoom meeting with the ranking members of the committees to feel their temperature, take the temperature about their feelings about the 2024 election before Congress is set to return tomorrow. And sources tell CNN that in that private phone conversation, that the number of lawmakers who wanted to see the President step aside outweighed those who spoke up in support of him staying in this race. Cnn has learned about six of those Democratic lawmakers said that they believe it is time for the President to leave the 2024 race, that it included lawmakers like Congressmen Tocano, congressman Nadler, also Congresswoman Wild of Pennsylvania, a key battleground state. Sources have also told CNN that lawmakers like Congresswoman Maxine Waters, as well as congressman Bobby Scott, spoke up in support of the President staying in this race. Now, one of the concerns that was expressed in this phone call is the potential that keeping Biden at the top of the Democratic ticket could weigh down other Democrats running in competitive races in the House and Senate.

There is a concern about Democrats being unable to win back the House majority if Biden remains at the top of the Democratic ticket. Now, these private calls from these lawmakers join the already other five Democratic lawmakers who since the debate, have called for President Biden to step aside publicly. Now, President Biden himself believes that the Democratic Party is still behind him. That is something that he's told reporters today as he was traveling in Pennsylvania, trying to make his case directly to voters. The President had done some time visiting a Black church, and then also speaking at a campaign headquarters where he showed no signs of backing down from this race. Take a listen to what he told supporters there.

This election is going to be about block and tackling. Simple, basic politics. Six. Simple. It's going to be a matter how many signs we get out, how many doors we knock on, how many calls we make, and how many request we answer.

I got my glasses in.

I tell you what, Dark Brandon is coming back.

Now, you might have seen in that video that while the President was in Pennsylvania, he tried to have this show of force of elected officials there with traveling with the President in Philadelphia and Pennsylvania, where Senator John Federman, as well as Congresswoman Madalene Dean, Senator Bob Casey was also on hand for part of the trip. The Biden campaign trying to put forth some of those supporters of the President at a time when you have started to see these defections from the President's own party play out. Now, so much of the debate about President Biden remaining in the race has played out while Congress has been out on vacation. So there is a good chance that the pressure could continue to build on President Biden even further as these lawmakers return to the House and Senate and are in front of reporters and are also holding their own types of meetings and gatherings to talk through the 2020 race. But so far, President Biden has completely remained defiant in this, saying that he plans to stay in the race until the November election, even as these calls and serious doubts from Democrats continue to grow and are being expressed both privately and publicly.

And of course, the President is it's around friendly crowds right now who are his fervent supporters. But how are voters reacting to President Biden on the campaign trail? What are they saying about the debate and whether it's still weighing on them now?

Well, I've been traveling with the President over the past few days, both in Wisconsin and in Pennsylvania. I was outside of that church service where the President spoke this morning, and I spoke to a handful of the parishioners who were in attendance for the church service, and they all told me that they still wanted to see President Biden move forward in this race. One of those voters told that they believed it was too late for the President to drop out at this point. Others saying that they believe that he is allowed to have a bad night and that they wanted to see him continue forward. When I was in Wisconsin, I heard really a mixed reaction from voters. Some people fervent supporters who wanted to have him stay in the race, others who did have some concern after the debate and what it would mean for voters and how that would sit with them heading into November's election. President Biden is hoping that he can try to convert some of those skeptical voters as he's the campaign trail. He will be in Michigan on Friday. That'll be the next battleground state that he will be visiting, I'm told.

But of course, he is also facing those very loud calls from within his own party, from Democratic officials, from donors who are very concerned about what this race will look like if Biden stays at the top of the ticket.

All right, Arlette Sines. Thank you so much. Joining us now, CNN senior political commentator and former special assistant to President George W. Bush, Scott Jennings, and Democratic strategist and co founder of Lift Our Voices, Julie Roginski. I guess the first question to you, Julie, is help us make sense of this, right? We are now at this stage where you have a President who is digging in his heels saying, I'm not going anywhere. I am staying atop the ticket. And then you have more and more defections in his party, now the latest count is 11 House Democrats saying he should step aside. And what I'm told from sources is actually there will be more coming out this week as members of Congress come to the Hill. What weight does this carry? If these are House members calling him to step aside, but not necessarily, some of them are ranking members, but not necessarily leadership, like Hakeem Jeffrey or Nancy Pelosi.

Well, Hakeem Jeffrey's is a very shrewd politician, and he convenient this call knowing that the leaks were going to emanate. He certainly knew that you couldn't have as many as however many he had on the call today without this getting out immediately. It's also not a coincidence, I think, that a lot of ranking members spoke up. To effectively, I think, give Hakeem Jeffreys the leeway to maybe go with Chuck Schumer to the President and say, Look, we've heard now from ranking members like Jerry Nadler, who are certainly in no danger of losing their seat this November, but also from frontline members like Susan Wild in Northampton County, Pennsylvania, which is the swingiest county and the swingiest state in the nation, who are worried about you and worried about the down ballot effect this may have. And that's before we get back from July fourth recess and Congress reconvenes where, as Scott well knows, these guys feed off of each other. And they're not all necessarily profiles encourage, but they all do speak to each other, and they may all team up together to deliver that message to leadership and have leadership to send that message to the White House.

And so this is not trending in a good direction for the President. I'll also say that every day that goes by where we're talking about this and we're not talking about Donald Trump and the threat he poses to the nation, both with his personal record of 34 felonies and with his plans for a second term, where he promised to effectively be the vengeance for all of his MAGA offended party, is not a good day for Democrats. And so with every day that goes by, and we're focusing on this and not focusing on the former President, is not a good day for us. And so I strongly think that it's time for President Biden to take a look at what this may look like. If this continues on into next week and the next month, we don't have time. We need to refocus this campaign on Donald Trump and the threat he poses to our democracy and to our nation.

There are certainly, as you talk about, Julie, there's been a lot of breaking news within the Democratic Party that has taken away from what the Democratic Party would like us all to be talking about, and that is Donald Trump. You have a President who some have characterized as, in denial about members of his party turning against him. I mean, just today, he said, No, I have the Democratic Party on my side, and now we're having 11 11 members at last count say he should step aside. Meanwhile, you have a senior house member telling me that on Tuesday, the widespread view is the dam will break, that Hakeem Jeffrey is going to hold his caucus meeting, and that is when it will become abundantly clear where the caucus stands. And the view is, in talking to sources, that it is leaning more toward pushing President Biden to step aside than the other way. Do you think, though, Scott, looking at this President that we saw in that interview on ABC, looking at the President we saw today, do you think this will move the needle for him?

Well, he sounds dug in, and the family sounds dug in. And so I don't really know because it seems like the people he is listening to are principally his wife, the first lady, and his son, Hunter Biden. There's credible reporting now that Hunter Biden has become the de facto gatekeeper to his father. And is now in White House senior staff meetings. When your circle gets that tight and it's made up of family, you wonder what information is getting through. Actually, in watching the Stephanopoulos interview, wondered what the President has been told about his own polling and his own political situation. That was Friday. Now, fast forward with these new House members coming out and other things that Democrats, apparently, are going to be saying this week, you wonder how much of that's actually going to get to the President. It strikes It tells me that it would take a Jeffrey's and a Schumer to directly go to him and say, Here's your situation. But it's not clear. Look, just to stand up for the President for a minute, which might surprise you. He did win the votes. He did win the nomination, and it is his and his alone to give up.

It's not like they can roust him out. I would say this, if he does give it up, it raises the question to me of whether he should just resign the office, because effectively, what the Democrats are saying is, We don't have confidence for you to lead us for the next four years. Well, you have confidence to lead us today. I think it's a real question about whether he should remain at that point and let Kamala Harris just run as an incumbent.