Following President Joe Biden's disastrously bad debate performance last week, there have been increasingly loud rumblings among Democratic donors, lawmakers, pundits, and strategists that perhaps the incumbent is too old and too diminished for a second term in office.

A general consensus that has formed among many who want to see Biden exit the 2024 race and be replaced as the nominee is that only first lady Jill Biden has the ability to influence such a decision -- but indications are that she is far from being on board with that idea, according to Business Insider.

In fact, it seems more likely than not that the first lady will staunchly resist the efforts to get the president to step aside and instead will insist on staying the course, even as a growing majority of the American people have determined that he is simply no longer up to the task.

Jill must be on board with any effort to oust Joe

There was an immediate outcry of shock and disappointment from Democrats across the board after President Biden's terrible showing in last Thursday's presidential debate, and it brought to the surface the reality of an intraparty movement to convince Biden to drop out of the presidential race, according to Politico.

That included talk among some of mounting some sort of pressure campaign, replete with high-profile Democratic officials and luminaries contacting Biden privately to talk him out of persisting with his presidential run.

As Politico noted, though, "A consistent theme from Democrats who know Biden: First lady Jill Biden would have to be a party to any intervention with the president."

Jill still promoting Joe's run for a second term

Yet, if Jill Biden's post-debate behavior is any indication, as documented by The Washington Post, the first lady is not down for the cause of helping her fellow Democrats remove her husband from the top of the party's presidential ticket.

At a rally immediately after the debate, she praised her husband's performance and declared proudly, "Joe, you did such a great job! You answered every question! You knew all the facts!"

The first lady was a bit more realistic during a small fundraiser in New York on Friday, though no less defiant in subtly smacking down the talk of him exiting the race. Admitting that they realized his debate performance had been subpar, she told the campaign donors, "I said, 'Look, Joe, we are not going to let 90 minutes define the four years that you’ve been president,'" and added, "When he gets knocked down, Joe gets back up, and that’s what we’re doing today."

Bidens aren't "going to have their hands forced" to drop out

The New York Times reported on Monday that President Biden was standing firm against the calls from his fellow Democrats to step aside from his presidential run, and made mention of how "a siege mentality has set in for a team that remembers -- and is fond of repeating -- how it outlasted the doubters four years ago to win the nomination in the first place."

At the center of the siege is the first lady, and one of her closest former aides, Michael LaRosa, said those who expected her to help in convincing Biden to drop out of the race were sorely mistaken about the nature of their "political relationship" that was forged in controversy after he was compelled to exit the 1988 presidential race amid accusations of plagiarism.

"In 1987, she saw him be forced out by the press, pundits, and polls, and it was really a scarring experience for both of them," LaRosa recalled from his discussions with the first lady about that incident. "I think they learned from that experience and they weren’t going to have their hands forced like they were in 1987."

Biden surrounded by "yes men" hyping him up to keep running

Business Insider further quoted a few political experts who likewise believed that the first lady, among others within the inner circle, would resist the calls for President Biden to drop out of the presidential race and instead encourage him to "double down" as he has done throughout most of his decades-long political career.

"It's possible the Bidens have surrounded themselves with 'yes men' and psyching themselves up to say, 'we can do this,' without being in touch with the millions of people saying, 'you have to step down,'" Nadia Hilliard, a lecturer on U.S. politics at University College London, told BI. She added that the "genuine fear" among many other Democrats of the chaos that would ensue if he dropped out would further compel their continued support, and said, "There's a sense that if he withdraws, Trump wins. That would be a disastrous move."