As doubts grow about President Biden’s mental acuity, the spotlight turns to whether he can step down as the presidential nominee while completing his first term, and what that would mean for Vice President Kamala Harris’ political future.

‘Vice President Kamala Harris owes the American people an explanation as to why she has not been honest about President Biden’s steep decline into incapacity,’ Mike Howell, executive director of the conservative advocacy group Heritage Action, told Fox News Digital.

‘She chose politics over national security and history will judge her for that decision.’

Howell added that Democratic lawmakers are unlikely to call for Biden to retire immediately and allow Harris to take the helm, because ‘to admit that is that they’ve basically been complicit in a lie for the last three and a half years,’ referring to Biden’s declining health.

‘Him stepping down is an implicit endorsement of Kamala Harris being the nominee, because she would be the incumbent president at that point, and so I think that factors into it,’ Howell said. ‘What’s happening right now is there’s just going to be a series of rounds of people increasingly calling for it, and obviously President Biden’s trying to resist those calls as much as possible. But I think it’s unavoidable that more and more do call.’

Despite the growing chorus of concerned lawmakers calling on Biden to suspend his re-election campaign due to his poor debate performance and fading vitality, Biden has repeatedly said he is not dropping out of the race.

‘Most of the Democrats who are questioning whether or challenging President Biden should run are in either swing districts or tough re-election races of their own, or they need independent and Republican votes,’ Democratic strategist Mustafa Rashed told Fox News Digital in an interview.

‘It’s tough,’ Rashed continued. ‘The advantage that the vice president has is that she’s been adjacent to the Oval Office for the last three and a half years, which is something that no one else can say. I would also say that she’s the only person that’s been nationally, publicly and thoroughly vetted right now, like some of the other candidates have not gone through the sort of vetting process that’s required to run for national office.’

Other potential Democratic candidates who have been floated as options to replace Biden include Gov. Gavin Newsom, of California, and Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, of Michigan.

When asked at a Biden-Harris campaign event in New Hampshire this week, Newsom said Harris would likely win in a hypothetical matchup against former President Trump. 

‘I have no doubt about that. And that’s from someone that’s also known her longer than most, before we were both in politics,’ Newsom said, The Associated Press reported. ‘But I don’t expect it’s going to come to that.’

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

Fox News learned that multiple Democrats on House committees expressed concerns about the viability of Biden continuing to run for re-election against Trump after House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., held a virtual meeting with ranking Democrats on House panels Sunday afternoon.

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 Harris as a potential successor.

Additionally, a recent CNN/SSRS poll shows Harris performing slightly better than Biden in a matchup against Trump.

House Republicans are already on the offense against Harris as a possible replacement for Biden’s candidacy should he step down from the race.

GOP lawmakers – in both safe red seats and swing districts being targeted by the left – dismissed Harris as a political threat to their chances in November, arguing she’s still tied to the same progressive Biden policies they believe are unpopular with voters.

Rep. Nick Langworthy, R-N.Y., who served as longtime chair of the New York Republican Party before coming to Congress, previously told Fox News Digital, ‘Kamala Harris is just as responsible for this administration’s failures, but she’s more incompetent.’

A swing-seat Republican who asked not to be named told Fox News Digital they were skeptical Harris would do better on the debate stage than Biden. 

‘I would say she’s the weakest part of the ticket right now, as bad as Biden is,’ that GOP lawmaker said.

Reps. Jerrold Nadler, D-N.Y., Mark Takano, D-Calif., Don Beyer, D-Va., and Adam Smith, D-Wash., reportedly 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 saying he backs the president staying in the race. 

‘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.’

Fox News’ Elizabeth Elkind, Greg Wehner and Chad Pergram contributed to this report.

Former President Donald Trump published a screed on Tuesday warning Republican lawmakers that they have no choice but to pass the SAVE Act, warning ‘our whole voting system is under siege.’ 

The Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act would amend the National Voter Registration Act, requiring states to obtain proof of citizenship from voters for federal elections, and purging non-citizens from voter rolls. 

‘Republicans must pass the Save Act, or go home and cry yourself to sleep,’ Trump wrote on his proprietary social media platform Truth Social. 

He continued, ‘Non citizen Illegal Migrants are getting the right to vote, being pushed by crooked Democrat Politicians who are not being stopped by an equally dishonest Justice Department.’

Under the legislation, voters would be required to provide proof of citizenship via IDs and documentation such as a passport, a government-issued photo ID showing proof the individual was born in the U.S., military IDs, or a valid photo ID as well as documentation showing proof of citizenship, such as a birth certificate, the legislation states. 

The Democratic leadership is urging its House members to vote against the bill in the lead-up to the vote, saying it would place ‘an extreme burden [on] countless Americans’ in order to vote. 

‘The Dems can’t win on their policies, the only way they can win is to CHEAT. They do it at every level of government, and they do it well. That’s how they get an incapacitated moron like Joe Biden elected,’ the former president said in his Truth Social post. ‘The Justice Department is CORRUPT and won’t do a thing to help. They have no shame!’

If the SAVE Act is successfully passed through the House, it faces an uphill battle in the Democrat-controlled Senate. 

Even if the bill overcame the upper chamber of Congress, President Biden has vowed to kill the legislation if asked to sign.

Trump ended his message with a threat to ‘pursue Election Fraudsters at levels never seen before’ if elected in November, saying such individuals would be ‘sent to prison for long periods of time.’

The former president seemed to specifically call out Facebook creator and Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, saying, ‘We already know who you are. DON’T DO IT! ZUCKERBUCKS, be careful!’

Fox News Digital’s Emma Colton contributed to this report.

Some lawmakers are making the case that the Biden presidency is a group effort in order to quell concerns over the president’s mental sharpness and health, as the party stands in disarray with some members considering strategies to dissuade President Biden from seeking re-election.

‘A presidency is more than just one man, one woman, it’s an administration,’ former Obama administration Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson said on MSNBC’s ‘Morning Joe’ last week. ‘I would take Joe Biden’s worst day at age 86, so long as he has people around him like Avril Haines, Sam Power, Gina Raimondo supporting him, over Donald Trump any day.’

The Wall Street Journal also published a report Monday that outlined how Biden’s ‘inner circle’ – made up of Democrat donors and aides – reportedly kept his signs of aging a secret. Republicans have been more openly skeptical of Biden’s closest aides around him, questioning whether Biden is really at the helm of the country’s leadership at all.

‘Donald Trump’s running on common sense, on restoring common sense versus the lunacy of the last four years in the far left and the shadow government that now is running our country with Joe Biden as its figurehead. That’s what he’s running against,’ Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., said on CNN’s ‘State of the Union’ Sunday.

Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., – a strong Trump ally – echoed Rubio’s belief that there is a ‘shadow government’ made up of tight knit Democrat strategists, aides and lawmakers helping Biden behind the scenes. 

‘We’ve all known Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi and Obama’s been running the country along with [Secretary of State] Blinken and [National Security Advisor] Sullivan,’ Tuberville said on Fox News Channel’s ‘Sunday Morning Futures.’ ‘You can tell by Schumer’s actions, Pelosi’s actions, the first two years they were calling the shots.’

‘Hopefully, the people understand that they’ve had total control, not the president but Schumer and Pelosi and all the deep state,’ Tubrerville continued. ‘The deep state’s total control over this, and hopefully we can get control of it and get the Democrats out of power and get Trump and all the Republicans running this country.’

Congressional Democrats will hold caucus meetings on Tuesday regarding Biden’s re-election bid as the party becomes more concerned with the president’s ability to beat former President Trump in November. Lawmakers exiting the meetings have been tight-lipped, though at least one has said there is ‘no consensus’ regarding Biden.

For his part, Biden has repeatedly stated that he will not resign from the race. He issued a public letter to House Democrats on Monday demanding an ‘end’ to the party drama.

‘I am running. I am the leader of the Democratic Party. No one is pushing me out,’ Biden said, according to an aide who posted his comment on X, formerly Twitter, last week.

To prove he has the vitality to remain president another four years, the Biden-Harris campaign has organized a slew of nationwide campaign stops – including across swing states – for Biden to headline.

Fox News Digital reached out to the White House for comment but did not hear back by press deadline. 

Fox News Digital’s Anders Hagstrom contributed to this report. 

Democrats in Congress mostly resisted calling for President Biden to drop out of the race despite raising private concerns during an all-caucus, closed-door meeting Tuesday, according to reports. 

Lawmakers returned to Washington, D.C., this week after the Fourth of July recess, offering Democrats the first time to get together in person and discuss Biden’s disastrous debate performance two weeks ago. 

However, in a sharply worded letter sent Monday, Biden insisted that he would stay in the race and urged party leaders to refocus their criticisms on former President Trump. The letter seemed to at least temporarily slow the momentum of Democrats who are publicly calling for the president to step aside. Most members instead are towing the party line on Biden publicly, at least for now. 

At least 20 Democratic lawmakers stood up to speak during the nearly two-hour all-caucus meeting Tuesday, in what for many is an existential moment for their country considering a second Trump presidency, The Associated Press reported. Most of those who spoke wanted Biden to end his candidacy, a person granted anonymity to discuss the meeting told the outlet.

However, speaking publicly afterward, most Democrats who had urged against Biden continuing his re-election campaign have recanted, according to Axios. They acknowledged it would be too difficult to replace him as their nominee at this stage, just weeks before Democrats will convene at their convention in Chicago. Conversations between House and Senate Democrats were ‘dour’ and ‘sad,’ lawmakers in the meeting told the AP. 

‘He said he’s going to remain in, he’s our candidate, and we’re going to support him,’ Rep. Jerry Nadler of New York, the top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, said on CNN. 

Over the weekend, Nadler was among those privately saying Biden should not run, explicitly telling colleagues on a call Sunday that the president needed to drop out of the race, the New York Times reported. Nadler backtracked after Tuesday’s meeting, instead stating that his reservations were ‘beside the point’ and that Biden was ‘going to be our nominee.’ 

‘He has the delegates. I keep telling them that,’ Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, D-Mo., told Politico of Biden. ‘He got 14 million votes. Nobody else has any.’

‘I’m staying with Papa,’ Rep. Adriano Espaillat, D-N.Y., said, according to the AP. He said his constituents understand what the country went through during the COVID-19 pandemic and how Biden led through the crisis. ‘He was fit then, and he’s fit now.’

Democrats on Sunday had described this week as critical for Biden to prove that his campaign is viable. 

Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colo., who briefly ran for president himself, stated Sunday that Biden needs to ‘reassure the American people that he can run a vigorous campaign to defeat Donald Trump.’ 

Bennett confirmed to CNN on Tuesday that he told lawmakers during the closed-door session he does not believe Biden can defeat Trump in November. 

‘I think we could lose the whole thing,’ he said, referring to the White House and both chambers of Congress. 

While the all-hands meeting resolved most Democrats to inaction, late in the day Tuesday a seventh House Democrat, Rep. Mikie Sherrill of New Jersey, publicly called on Biden not to run for re-election. With Trump seeking to return to the White House, ‘the stakes are too high – and the threat is too real – to stay silent,’ Sherrill said. 

Among the seven who have stuck their necks out publicly by calling for Biden to step aside is Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash., the ranking member of the Armed Services Committee. 

‘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,’ Smith said, according to the Times.

Before the all-caucus gathering on Tuesday, a smaller group of Democrats facing competitive House races in November were ‘pretty much unanimous’ in a separate meeting of their own that Biden has ‘got to step down,’ Axios reported, citing lawmakers involved. ‘There were actual tears from people, and not for Biden,’ one lawmaker told the outlet. 

The majority of Democratic senators who spoke during the lunch meeting expressed deep concerns about whether Biden can beat Trump in November, though they stopped short of saying he should step down from the race, a person familiar with the conversation and granted anonymity to discuss it told the AP. There were also a handful of senators who defended Biden. 

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York repeated, ‘I’ve said before, I’m with Joe.’

Some are turning more serious attention to Vice President Kamala Harris as an alternative, the AP reported.

Biden spent part of his Tuesday evening speaking on a virtual call with more than 200 Democratic mayors, saying he will win re-election with ‘basic block-and-tackling’ and boasting of the thousands of calls being made to voters, doors being knocked and signs being posted in support of his candidacy, according to a readout from his campaign.

That came after the president met virtually late Monday with the Congressional Black Caucus, whose members are core to Biden’s coalition, thanking them for having his back, and assuring them he would have theirs in a second term. He was also to meet with the Congressional Progressive Caucus, whose leadership – along with that of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus – has said publicly they are sticking with the president.

Rep. Jasmine Crockett of Texas, a freshman Democrat, said there is too much at stake to turn away from Biden at this point in the campaign, saying a second Trump presidency would be extremely harmful to Black Americans across the country. ‘We are not willing to risk our freedoms for somebody feeling good because there’s a different name on the ballot,’ she said.

Having been on the campaign trail with Biden, Crockett told the AP, ‘That is why I can feel so confident, because I have seen more than the 90 minutes that everybody is so concerned about.’

Additionally, Rep. Dean Phillips, D-Minn., who ended his long-shot 2024 Democratic presidential bid months ago, was asked by reporters if he felt vindicated by Democrats calling on Biden to step aside. 

‘If this is vindication, vindication has never been so unfulfilling,’ he said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report. 

Dr. Kevin O’Connor, President Biden’s physician, has been mostly out of the public’s view despite first overseeing Biden’s health care in 2009 and building what has been described as a cozy relationship with the Biden family over the last 15 years. 

‘I have never had a better commander than Joe Biden,’ O’Connor said in a rare profile interview with his alma mater, New York Institute of Technology College of Osteopathic Medicine, when Biden served as vice president. ‘All politics aside, he approaches his craft with such honor. He’s 100 percent ‘family first.’ He’s ‘genuinely genuine.’’

O’Connor’s name, however, has recently become common in news reports, as speculation mounts that Biden’s mental acuity has slipped and concerns grow that the White House’s credibility regarding information on the president’s health is dwindling amid repeated gaffes, miscues and disjointed remarks Biden has made during public events. 

The White House physician is affectionately known to Biden and his family simply as ‘Doc,’ and was specifically requested by Biden in 2009 to stay on as his physician after serving on the White House Medical Unit under the George W. Bush administration. 

O’Connor was first appointed to the White House Medical Unit in 2006 for what was intended to be a three-year military assignment, according to his profile published by the New York Institute of Technology College of Osteopathic Medicine, from which he graduated in 1992. Instead, ‘Vice President Biden asked O’Connor to stay on,’ the profile continues. O’Connor complied, marking the beginning of their doctor-patient relationship that has reportedly evolved into a cozy relationship with the president’s large family. 

Biden’s 2017 memoir ‘Promise Me, Dad,’ which was re-examined recently by Fox News Digital, features the president reflecting on his close relationship with ‘Doc,’ including O’Connor joining the family on their annual vacation to Nantucket, balking at the family’s ‘browsing extravaganza’ on the tony island. 

The physician’s relationship with the family seemingly grew closer, according to the memoir, when the president’s son, Beau Biden, was diagnosed with brain cancer – which ultimately claimed his life in 2015. 

‘Doc was good with Beau, who was still trying to get his bearings in those first few days. Real fear was starting to creep in. Sometimes Beau would grab him when everybody else was out of earshot to get his honest assessment,’ Biden wrote in the memoir. 

‘‘Whatever it is, this is bad,’ he told Beau, ‘but we’re gonna find out what it is. And once we find out what it is, we will have a plan.’’ 

‘‘Promise?’ Beau asked.’

‘‘Promise.’’ 

In another excerpt, Beau Biden requested O’Connor ‘promise’ to take care of his father if he should die. 

‘‘Seriously, Doc. No matter what happens. Take care of Pop. For real. Promise me. For real,’’ Beau Biden said to O’Connor, according to the book. 

Back in 2018, Biden’s sister-in-law, Sara Biden, described O’Connor as a ‘friend’ who provided medical advice to members of the Biden family beyond the eventual commander in chief. 

‘Colonel O’Connor was actually a friend and he — we would frequently ask for his recommendations if any of us had a medical issue, so it was not uncommon to ask him if he had a recommendation,’ she said in a deposition related to a New York state medical malpractice case involving her daughter.

Republican Texas Congressman Ronny Jackson, who served as former President Obama’s White House physician before also overseeing former President Trump’s health, told the New York Post this month that Jill Biden has a cozy and familial relationship with O’Connor. 

‘Kevin O’Connor is like a son to Jill Biden — she loves him. It’s crazy. Kevin O’Connor was in that job on day one of the Biden administration because they knew they could trust Kevin to say and do anything that needed to be said or done and cover up whatever needed to be covered up. He is part of the Biden family,’ Jackson told the outlet. 

O’Connor, who retired as an Army colonel in 2017, also had a business relationship with the Biden family, Politico reported. He introduced Jim Biden, the president’s younger brother, to military health officials and met with another hospital president as the younger Biden pursued healthcare ventures through the hospital chain Americore in 2017, according to the outlet. 

‘I truly enjoyed our time together the other day,’ O’Connor wrote to a Pennsylvania hospital president after a meeting he shared with Jim Biden, according to Politico. ‘You and your team clearly share our vision, and I look forward to seeing you again in coming months.’ 

Concern over Biden’s mental sharpness hit a fever pitch late last month, when he delivered a botched debate performance that included losing his train of thought at times and giving garbled answers in a subdued and raspy voice. The debate unleashed panic among Democratic allies and members of the media, as they remarked his debate performance was a failure that added fuel to the fire surrounding concerns about Biden’s mental acuity and age. 

Amid the fallout from the debate, as well as his first sit-down interview with the media last week that did not help quell concerns, Biden has vowed to stay in the race. 

‘I want you to know that despite all the speculation in the press and elsewhere, I am firmly committed to staying in this race, to running this race to the end, and to beating Donald Trump,’ Biden wrote in a letter Monday to congressional Democrats, calling on them to end their questions on whether he should end his re-election bid.

‘I wouldn’t be running again if I did not absolutely believe I was the best person to beat Donald Trump in 2024,’ he added.

The White House did not respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment when asked about O’Connor’s close relationship with the president and the first family or whether the president would be evaluated by an outside doctor. Fox Digital also reached out to O’Connor through George Washington University, where he serves as associate professor of health, human function and rehabilitation sciences, but did not receive a response. 

As the White House and Biden campaign try to dismiss concerns over Biden’s debate performance, repeated gaffes and miscues while in public, the White House press corps has grilled the administration about the president’s health in increasingly fiery exchanges with press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre. On Monday, one White House reporter noted during the press briefing that the administration’s ‘credibility’ regarding the president’s health has been called into question, while another reporter asked Jean-Pierre if the media could hear directly from O’Connor regarding Biden’s health. 

O’Connor has never taken the podium at the White House to speak with the media, Fox News Digital found, including back in 2022, when Biden was diagnosed with COVID-19. 

Former White House doctor under the Trump administration, Sean Conley, spoke to the media when Trump was diagnosed with COVID in 2020, as did Trump’s previous physician Jackson in 2018 to tout the then-president’s ‘good genes’ and how he passed a cognitive test. 

O’Connor has released a handful of statements and updates on the president’s health since Biden was sworn into the nation’s highest office in 2021, including when he was diagnosed with COVID, as well as updates on Biden’s annual physicals. 

His interviews with the media and public events, however, are few and far between. O’Connor did have a sit-down, recorded conversation with the Federation of State Medical Boards in 2022, when he discussed his work in the White House and medical background, as well as another recorded interview with his alma mater last year. 

O’Connor has overwhelmingly brushed off media requests for interviews and comments in recent weeks, various media reports show, including when contacted by Fox News Digital since Biden’s disastrous debate performance on June 27. 

The physician released his latest letter on Monday to address mounting concerns over reports showing a Parkinson’s expert visited the White House eight times across eight months. 

O’Connor said Parkinson’s specialist Dr. Kevin Cannard was chosen for Biden’s annual physicals ‘not because he is a movement disorder specialist, but because he is a highly trained and highly regarded neurologist here at Walter Reed and across the Military Health System, with a very wide expertise which makes him flexible to see a variety of patients and problems.’

The letter added that Biden did not see ​​a neurologist outside his annual physicals. 

No signs of neurological disorders, such as Parkinson’s disease, multiple sclerosis, ascending lateral sclerosis, stroke or cervical myelopathy, were found during Biden’s physical in February, O’Connor said. 

The Parkinson’s expert’s visits to the White House have fanned the flames surrounding the media’s concern that the White House has reportedly not been forthright with the public about the president’s concern. 

On Monday, during the White House press briefing, Jean-Pierre had a fiery exchange with CBS reporter Ed O’Keefe after brushing off questions regarding confirmation of Cannard’s White House visits. 

‘It’s a very basic, direct question,’ O’Keefe shouted at Jean-Pierre. ‘That’s what you should be able to answer by this point.’

‘No, no, no, no, no,’ Jean-Pierre immediately pushed back. ‘Ed, please. A little respect here. Please.’

‘So every year around the president’s physical examination, he sees a neurologist. That’s three times, right? So I am telling you that he has seen a neurologist three times while he has been in this presidency. That’s what I’m saying,’ Jean-Pierre continued. 

O’Keefe continued to press the matter, with O’Connor’s letter confirming Cannard’s White House visits later Monday. 

President Biden was pressed in an interview with George Stephanopoulos last week on whether he would take a cognitive test and release the results to the public, which Biden repeatedly dodged. 

‘Have you had the specific cognitive tests, and have you had a neurologist, a specialist, do an examination?’ Stephanopoulos asked.

‘No, no one said I had to. … They said I’m good,’ Biden responded.

Fox News Digital’s Landon Mion and Joseph A. Wulfsohn contributed to this report.