LISA DESJARDINS: Good evening.

I'm Lisa Desjardins.

John Yang is a way.

President Biden is facing more calls for him to jump out of the 2024 race following a disappointing debate performance last week.

Today, moderate Democratic Congresswoman Angie Craig publicly declare that Biden should step aside as the party's nominee citing the debate and his words since saying she does not believe he can win against Donald Trump.

PBS News has spoken with major democratic donors and members of Congress today who are privately signaling the same call this despite Biden sitting down yesterday for a television interview to address those concerns.

The President told ABC George Stephanopoulos he thinks he can win and does not plan on dropping out.

Domenico Montanaro is NPR Senior Political Editor and correspondent and Kadia Goba, political reporter for Semafor and my good colleagues who know politics so well.

I want to first talk about who we've I've talked to today to members of Congress and a major donor today who praised Biden to me but said sadly, Time for Plan B.

This even after Biden went to such lengths to try and explain what happened at the debate.

BIDEN: I was having a bad night when I realized that he and I was answering a question even they turned his mic off.

He was still shouting.

And I let it distract me.

I'm not blaming.

But I realized that I just wasn't in control.

LISA DESJARDINS: Kadia, I know it drives voters crazy when we use these anonymous sources.

But this is a very delicate moment the White House is trying to reassure Democrats, but what's your reporting on how much of the momentum may be moving the other way?

KADIA GOBA, Political Reporter, Semafor: Yeah, Lisa, it is delicate.

I think the problem that Biden is facing is that members of Congress who were considering or contemplating whether or not they would ask him to step down from running, weren't convinced after that last interview.

When I spoke to some of my sources, they say they weren't surprised that Angie Craig came out.

And they expect the floodgates to open once members of Congress return next week.

So I think we'll hear more members come out and say the same thing.

DOMENICO MONTANARO, Senior Political Editor and Correspondent, NPR: I think it does depend on what they do hear from their constituents.

But to be honest with you, it's been a week of this right and Joe Biden is in control of his own destiny, if he wants to run, he's going to run.

Now he did say we heard that clip where he said, you know, if the Lord Almighty came down and told me, Joe, you shouldn't run, then I won't run.

But the others who are a bit more in control of this process.

Also, it appears are the Democratic leaders in Congress that Joe Biden trusts people like Nancy Pelosi, the former House Speaker Hakeem Jeffries, Minority Leader Jim Clyburn, who really all that helped Joe Biden win the South Carolina prime primary and propelled him to the 2020 nomination, but all of them so far are supportive of Joe Biden.

If they're not going to push to have him out, then he's not going to get out of this race.

And at certain point, it'll feel like overkill and the Democratic Party is going to have to figure out how they're going to kind of coalesce back together to be able to beat Donald Trump.

LISA DESJARDINS: Well, my report and you guys may be hearing also, as we know that Democrats have called a call together tomorrow night House Democrats for some of their ranking members, their leadership, and whatever where you're in publicly, it is different privately.

One thing I want to get to is a key question.

It's not just about Biden's ability right now.

But what will his ability be like two years, three years from now?

And here's how Stephanopoulos brought that up.

GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS, ABC News Anchor: Do you have the mental and physical capacity to do it for another four years?

BIDEN: I'm pleased I wouldn't be run if I didn't think I did.

I have a cognitive test every single day.

Every day I have a test.

Everything I do.

You know, not only am I campaign him, I'm running the world.

LISA DESJARDINS: But he's not agreeing to submit to some kind of specific cognitive test.

Domenico, you wrote that a key factor here about Biden, it can go either way, depending if you support are not him is that he's stubborn?

DOMENICO MONTANARO: That clearly.

I mean, look, Joe Biden has had obstacles throughout his life, right.

And he's had lots of naysayers.

People tell him that he's not supposed to run people, telling him that, you know, he's not the best candidate to defer to others.

And this happened in 2015, when President -- former President Obama basically got him to step aside to allow Hillary Clinton to run.

And they look at that the Biden folks and say, look, you were wrong then, you're wrong now, because they feel the Biden name can still win.

You know, it's a difficult thing.

This is a conversation, frankly, though, that the Democratic Party should have probably had two years ago, as opposed to four months until Election Day.

LISA DESJARDINS: I hear that so much.

We've been talking about lawmakers.

But Kadia, you've got some reporting about donors.

And I'm also here donors, not just hesitant, but moving away.

How significant is the donor message to the Biden campaign right now?

KADIA GOBA: I would say it's pretty imperil, you know, donors look at this a little more black and white than lawmakers, right.

They're not thinking about constituents.

They're thinking, this is an investment that I made to a candidate who I thought would be the best kept Democratic candidate and who would probably win against Donald Trump.

That is not happening with polling with the botched report or the botched debate.

And you know, just recently, this interview, what I thought was more stunning on the phone call is people's -- LISA DESJARDINS: You were on a phone call with Biden donors -- KADIA GOBA: Yeah.

LISA DESJARDINS: -- and the Biden campaign.

KADIA GOBA: And I thought -- what I thought was stunning was, well, more advocates for political strategists was people donors ready to move on at this point.

It wasn't a matter of Hamilton Hall, and it was just, hey, he is not going to win.

How do we convince the Biden campaign that we need someone at someone else at the top of the ticket, and to me that was incredible.

This close to an election to hear that from big donors.

LISA DESJARDINS: There were strong words on that call.

I'd have to one of the donors that was on that call that said they actually were sort of offended because the advocates were saying, we don't really think you have a just cause here.

And then also other Democrats say the White House just isn't listening.

But Domenico, can the White House turn this around now?

It's really gone quite far.

DOMENICO MONTANARO: Well, there's clearly a huge antipathy for Donald Trump in this country.

I mean, let's remember that, you know, there's probably more than half the country that does not want Donald Trump to be president.

We've seen repeatedly Donald Trump's unfavorable ratings above 50 percent.

He didn't get above 47 percent in either of the last two elections.

And if you were a betting person, you'd say he's not going to get above 47 percent.

This time, either there are third parties is probably going to be lower than 47 percent.

So certainly, there is the appetite to not have Trump as president.

And we're spending all this time talking about Biden, but clearly there are things that Donald -- LISA DESJARDINS: But that what's driving this too.

There's a there's a fear from Democrats that they can beat Trump.

DOMENICO MONTANARO: Absolutely because they want to win, right.

LISA DESJARDINS: Right.

DOMENICO MONTANARO: When we talk about in the media and like some of the stuff that came out of that debate.

When you look just on paper at what Donald Trump has said and done.

There are -- really spells out the difference between the Democratic and Republican parties for why we're seeing this kind of cry out for Joe Biden potentially step aside because we're not talking about Joe Biden's conduct or character.

We're talking about his age as opposed to Donald Trump, where people have real serious problems with some of the some of his conduct and character.

LISA DESJARDINS: His capability, at least in our last few seconds, Kadia.

Is this week make or break?

As you said, Congress comes back on Monday.

KADIA GOBA: Yeah, I don't know if anything will change Joe Biden's mind.

But I do think a flurry of Democrats will come out ask him to step down, even if it's for the benefit of their own constituents and something they need to prove in those swing districts that, you know, Trump won.

DOMENICO MONTANARO: Surprise you might -- didn't do more to promote Kamala Harris, by the way in that interview.

LISA DESJARDINS: A topic I think we're going to get back to at some point, so Domenico Montanaro, Kadia Goba, but thank you so much.

KADIA GOBA: Thank you, Lisa.

DOMENICO MONTANARO: Thanks.