The New York Times’s editorial board published an article urging President Joe Biden to step out of the race following his disastrous performance at Thursday night’s debate against former President Donald Trump. The authors said the debate ruled out "sufficient rationale for why Mr. Biden should be the Democratic nominee this year."
“At Thursday’s debate, the president needed to convince the American public that he was equal to the formidable demands of the office he is seeking to hold for another term. Voters, however, cannot be expected to ignore what was instead plain to see: Mr. Biden is not the man he was four years ago,” the authors wrote.
They continued, “The president appeared on Thursday night as the shadow of a great public servant. He struggled to explain what he would accomplish in a second term. He struggled to respond to Mr. Trump’s provocations. He struggled to hold Mr. Trump accountable for his lies, his failures and his chilling plans. More than once, he struggled to make it to the end of a sentence.”
On Thursday, Biden more than once struggled to finish his sentences and communicate the vision of his next presidency. In the middle of it, his campaign circulated that he had developed a cold in the hours before the debate in the hope of tempering concerns over his raspy voice.
Former President Barack Obama's speechwriter Jon Favreau called the debate a “f***ing disaster” and said he thought “it was the worst debate I’ve ever seen in my entire life” on his podcast , Pod Save America, on Friday.
"I think there‘s a lot of people who are going to want to see [Biden] consider taking a different course now. We‘re still far from our convention, and there is time for this party to figure out a different way forward if he will allow us to do that,” Van Jones, who worked in the Obama White House, said. “That was not what we needed from Joe Biden, and it’s personally painful for a lot of people. It‘s not just panic. It’s pain of what we saw tonight.”
If Biden were to call off his campaign, it would create other problems for Democrats — notably that the money Biden has raised could only be transferred to the other person on the ticket, Vice President Kamala Harris, who has low approval ratings as well.
Biden campaign communications director Michael Tyler said , “There are no conversations about [dropping out] whatsoever."
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The article continues to say the board does not endorse Trump but demands the Democratic Party put the “interests of the nation above the ambitions of a single man.” The authors did not suggest a replacement for Biden.
"The clearest path for Democrats to defeat a candidate defined by his lies is to deal truthfully with the American public: acknowledge that Mr. Biden can’t continue his race, and create a process to select someone more capable to stand in his place to defeat Mr. Trump in November. It is the best chance to protect the soul of the nation — the cause that drew Mr. Biden to run for the presidency in 2019 — from the malign warping of Mr. Trump. And it is the best service that Mr. Biden can provide to a country that he has nobly served for so long," the article concluded.
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