Back in Washington, D.C., President Joe Biden is holding his first solo news conference of the year to close out the NATO summit, amid a frenzied debate over the future of his candidacy for president. More Democratic defectors emerged over the past day despite Biden’s calls to move on from the issue. Vermont Democrat Peter Welch became the first senator to call for Biden to step aside Wednesday. Democratic Congressmembers Pat Ryan and Earl Blumenauer also joined at least nine other House members calling on Biden to withdraw. Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi also weighed in on the issue during an interview on MSNBC.

Rep. Nancy Pelosi: “It’s up to the president to decide if he is going to run. We’re all encouraging him to make that decision, because time is running short.”

Meanwhile, the nation’s top union leaders reportedly expressed concerns about Biden’s candidacy at a closed-door meeting Wednesday.

In another blow for Biden, George Clooney, one of his highest-profile supporters in the entertainment world, publicly called for the sitting president to step down as the Democratic nominee. In an op-ed for The New York Times, Clooney wrote, “The Joe Biden I was with three weeks ago at the fund-raiser was not the Joe 'big F-ing deal' Biden of 2010. He wasn’t even the Joe Biden of 2020. He was the same man we all witnessed at the debate.”