Jeffries Meets Privately With Biden to Share Democrats’ Concerns

Representative Hakeem Jeffries, Democrat of New York and the minority leader, met one-on-one with President Biden on Thursday night to discuss the deep concerns many of his members harbor about the viability of the president’s re-election campaign.

In a brief letter he sent to House Democrats on Friday morning, Mr. Jeffries, a deliberate politician and a relatively untested leader, offered few details about the meeting, which took place at the White House after the president’s high-stakes news conference. The private meeting, Mr. Jeffries told his colleagues, had been set at his request.

“In my conversation with President Biden, I directly expressed the full breadth of insight, heartfelt perspectives and conclusions about the path forward that the caucus has shared in our recent time together,” Mr. Jeffries wrote.

In a moment when every word from Democratic leaders is being parsed, it was notable that Mr. Jeffries, who has said he supports Mr. Biden, left out any endorsement of the president in his three-paragraph letter.

Mr. Jeffries also did not say whether he had shared a conclusion with Mr. Biden about what he thinks the president should do, based on his extensive conversations with members and the data he has reviewed. Congressional Democrats have been quietly passing around grim polling numbers that suggest that Mr. Biden would lose to former President Donald J. Trump and potentially drag down House and Senate candidates with him.

Mr. Jeffries, whose job is to steer Democrats back to the majority in the House, has been participating in group meetings and one-on-one conversations with members for almost two weeks since Mr. Biden’s disastrous debate performance sent Democrats into a panic about his candidacy. Mr. Biden’s