Veteran Democrats are determined to force President Joe Biden to give up his reelection campaign, Axios reported.
The party members, mostly veterans of the Obama and Clinton administrations, "are plotting hourly to get him to withdraw quickly," Axios said Friday.
The group mainly consists of people who've worked together on past campaigns, and almost all are one step away from former Presidents Barack Obama or Bill Clinton.
"No one is more than one person away from everyone else," a source told the outlet.
Biden's status as the Democratic Party's presumptive presidential nominee has been an issue since his disastrous June 27 debate performance against former President Donald Trump.
The anti-Biden Democrats are lobbying former presidents and donors, and circulating poll results that show a party ticket without the president turns a November defeat into victory.
The veteran party members see the election coming down to three states — Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania — all that Biden won in 2020.
The veteran Democrats also are not backing Vice President Kamala Harris as Biden's replacement. Axios reported they're being "ruthless" to find the two people most likely to win those three states.
James Carville, Clinton's former campaign strategist, told Axios that Clinton and Obama are showing what they think by remaining publicly silent since tweeting support for Biden the day after the debate.
"Silence is a very loud form of speech," Carville said, the outlet reported. "No one is saying 'come hell or high water.'"
CNN reported Obama has spoken with former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., over their "concerns" about Biden's candidacy.
Biden faced more calls from fellow Democrats to abandon his reelection bid on Friday, following a news conference in which he delivered nuanced responses but occasionally stumbled over his words.
At least 17 congressional Democrats so far have called for him to drop out and allow the party to pick another standard-bearer, including some who announced their positions after the news conference on Thursday night.
Biden used his highly anticipated news conference Thursday to deliver a forceful defense of his foreign and domestic policies, and batted away questions about his ability to serve another four years even as he flubbed a reference to Trump in one of his first answers.
Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this story.