Members of the Democrat Party are frantically sounding the alarm following President Joe Biden’s frail first debate performance.
The president is facing mounting calls, both publicly and privately, to step down as the party’s nominee just four months before the election. “The fact is that you know, I wasn’t very smart,” said the 81-year-old president at a fundraiser this week. Biden admitted to donors, “I didn’t listen to my staff, and I came back and I fell asleep on the stage.”
Over a week after the debate, nine House Democrats have openly pressured Biden to remove himself from the ballot. 18 congressional Democrats, including Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., have also questioned whether the current president has the “vigor” to beat Donald Trump.
“I think most people who agree it’s time — an increasing number — are just really hoping to give him space to do this on his own, but we’ll certainly amp up the public pressure as needed,” one House Democrat told Axios.
Democrats have urged Senate and House party leadership to join the effort to remove Biden as the Democratic nominee. In addition, the White House has not made Dr. Kevin C. O’Connor, the president’s physician, available to answer media questions on Biden’s mental state.
Here are some of the most damning quotes from Democrats:
“Biden has continued to run substantially behind Democratic senators in key states and in most polls has trailed Donald Trump. I had hoped that the debate would provide some momentum to change that. It did not. … I am hopeful that he will make the painful and difficult decision to withdraw. I respectfully call on him to do so.”
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I.
“I think like a lot of people I was pretty horrified by the debate.”
Rep. Jared Huffman, D-Calif.
“We need a reset, we need a course correction. We’ve got to acknowledge that this was not just one bad night. This is a pretty pervasive and widespread perception that’s been dragging President Biden down in the polls for many months.”
Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp, D-Wash.
“Biden is going to lose to Trump. I know that’s difficult, but I think the damage has been done by that debate.”
“Biden’s poor performance in the debate was not a surprise. It also didn’t rattle me as it has others, because the outcome of this election has been clear to me for months: While I don’t plan to vote for him, Donald Trump is going to win.”
“The performance was horrible. The current president was not good. Why would I lie?”
“It’s a legitimate question to say, is this an episode, or is this a condition?”
Anonymous Lawmakers, Officials, and Donors
“If you wake Joe Biden at three-o-clock in the morning and ask him who’s president, does he get it right?”
“Consider me a ‘bedwetter.’ This is not getting better.”
“Everyone is freaking the f— out.”
“Why the hell isn’t Biden on the phone with congressional leadership? … Everybody now thinks he could cost us the majority.”
“It just ups the pressure on this whole thing. … It’s so selfish and pathetic.”
“She’s like, ‘If everybody just keeps saying that you can’t do anything, we’re gonna be Nazi Germany!’ People are in a panic.”
“If it turns out that he’s f—ed and Congress is f—ed, then that will be a whole second round of panic, and there will be a lot more pressure.”
“Just a general unanimity that it was bad and a sense of doom.”
