Washington — Several senior House Democrats said Sunday that President Biden should end his reelection campaign in the wake of his recent debate performance, multiple people tell CBS News.

Reps. Jerry Nadler of New York, Mark Takano of California, Adam Smith of Washington and Joe Morelle of New York said Sunday during a Zoom meeting with House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries that Mr. Biden should leave the race, according to a person on the call and three other people familiar with the meeting. 

Reps. Jim Himes of Connecticut, Don Beyer of Virginia and Jamie Raskin of Maryland also expressed skepticism of the president’s electoral chances, the member on the call and a person familiar with the meeting said. Beyer’s office on Sunday reaffirmed his support for Mr. Biden, despite initial reports suggesting that he was part of the group calling on the president to step aside.  

CBS News has reached out to all the members who sources say either expressed reservations about the president’s chances or said he should withdraw from the race.   

A spokesperson for Jeffries declined to comment on the call. 

The meeting came after House Democratic leaders convened a call last week amid a slow leak of Democratic lawmakers who have called for him to step aside. On Saturday, Rep. Angie Craig, who represents a frontline district in Minnesota, became the latest House Democrat to call for the president to withdraw from the race on Saturday. And the attention is expected to be on the president’s support in Congress as lawmakers return from recess this week. 

Meanwhile, Mr. Biden has appeared defiant in recent days, making clear that he plans to stay in the race despite concern from some members of his party. When asked during an interview with ABC News anchor George Stephanopoulos on Friday whether he would step down if there were calls from the party’s leaders in Congress, Mr. Biden brushed the question aside, saying “they’re not going to do that.”

The president said he had an hour-long conversation with Jeffries and had spent “many hours” with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer. The president also convened a meeting at the White House with Democratic governors last week. 

“If the Lord almighty came down and said ‘Joe, get out of the race,’ I’d get out of the race,” the president said. “The Lord almighty’s not coming down.”

Meanwhile, Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia has been speaking with Democratic colleagues about finding ways to convince the president to step aside and let others seek the nomination, a senator who’s been contacted by Warner told CBS News on Thursday. The senator noted at the time that there weren’t formal plans yet. 

Nikole Killion and Fin Gómez contributed reporting.

Ed O’Keefe

Ed O’Keefe is CBS News senior White House and political correspondent. He previously worked for The Washington Post covering presidential campaigns, Congress and federal agencies. His primary focus is on President Biden, Vice President Harris and political issues across the country.

Washington — NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said Sunday that far-right Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán‘s trip to Moscow last week for talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin does not change NATO’s position on assistance to Ukraine despite Hungary being a member country of the alliance. 

“Prime Minister Orbán… he made it clear when he came to Moscow that he didn’t go there on behalf of NATO, different NATO allies interact with Moscow in different ways,” Stoltenberg said Sunday on “Face the Nation.”

Hungary assumed the largely ceremonial role of the six-month rotating presidency of the EU on Monday, July 1. In less than a week, Orbán visited Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Ukraine and launched the “Patriots for Europe” alliance with other right-wing nationalists, according to Reuters.

But on Friday, during a rare trip to Russia by a European leader, he also met with Putin, a meeting that came just days before a NATO summit in Washington, D.C. where the topic of providing further military aid to Ukraine will be at the forefront.

Despite other European officials condemning Orbán’s trip to Moscow, Stoltenberg emphasized the meeting doesn’t change NATO’s common goals of aiding Ukraine in the war launched by the Russian invasion.

“What matters for me is that all allies have agreed that we need to do more  for Ukraine, both with this new training and assistance that NATO will provide to Ukraine, but also with the long term pledge,” he said on “Face the Nation. “And I also expect that by the summit that starts next week, allies will make new announcements on more air defense and more ammunition.”

Stoltenberg added that a main factor in NATO’s ability to make decisions on support to Ukraine is the common goal for peace.

“And the only way to get there is to convince President Putin that he will not win on the battlefield, he has to sit down and accept a solution where Ukraine prevails as a sovereign, independent nation in Europe,” Stoltenberg said. “The only way to convince Putin that he will not win on the battlefield is abroad military support to Ukraine. So a negotiated solution that is lasting for Ukraine requires military support to Ukraine.”

This week’s summit in Washington also comes as NATO allies have been bracing for possible Trump 2024 victory. 

During former President Donald Trump’s first term as president, America’s allies were shocked by his open criticism of the failure of some NATO members to meet defense funding commitments, and the Trump campaign has said that calling on allies to increase their defense spending is a policy that a future Trump White House would aggressively pursue.

Trump said at a February campaign rally in South Carolina that he’d encourage Russia to “do whatever the hell they want” to NATO allies who don’t pay their fair share into the Western military alliance. Referring to a conversation with an unnamed leader of a NATO country who asked him, “If we don’t pay, are you still going to protect us,” Trump said he replied, “Absolutely not.”

The NATO Secretary General met with Mr. Biden in June at the White House ahead of this week’s summit. When asked Sunday of his personal assessment of Mr. Biden as an effective leader, Stoltenberg said their conversation was a positive one.

“We had a good-we had a productive meeting. And of course, there is no way to make these big decisions on how to further strengthen NATO, enlarge NATO, new members without having a strong US leadership,” he said.