A group of US Democratic officials are beginning to publicly express concerns about whether President Joe Biden, after a faltering performance in last week’s debate against former President Donald Trumpis physically capable of another presidential bid in the November 5 elections.
Lloyd Doggett, a 15-term Texas House member, on Tuesday became the first Democratic official to call for Biden to step aside, saying Biden should “make the painful and difficult decision to step down.”
Doggett said his “decision to make these strong reservations public is not taken lightly nor does it in any way diminish my respect for all that President Biden has accomplished.”
But Doggett cited Biden’s weak performance in debates when he sometimes lost his train of thought and his inability to “effectively defend his many accomplishments.”
Biden, speaking Tuesday at a campaign event in Virginia, pointed to sleep deprivation and a travel schedule that in the weeks leading up to the debate included D-Day commemorations in France, a G-7 summit in Italy and multiple campaign events in the United States.
“The fact is, you know, I wasn’t very smart. I decided to travel around the world a couple of times, going through about 100 time zones… before… the debate. I didn’t listen to my team and I came back and almost fell asleep on stage,” he said. “That’s not an excuse, but it’s an explanation.”
However, senior Democratic leaders have expressed support for Biden after the recent debate and said he should stand firm in the face of growing unrest among his party colleagues.
Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York, the Senate majority leader, said he believed the 81-year-old president was fit to serve.
“I’m with Joe Biden,” he said, echoing comments from other senior party officials.
ABC News, which aggregates polling data, demographics and economic information to make its election forecasts, said Biden had slipped slightly in national polls since the debate but still concluded: “With four months to go until Election Day, the 2024 presidential election is an absolute mess.”
There is no indication that Biden is actively considering dropping out of the 2020 rematch with Trump, the first time two major-party presidential candidates have faced each other in back-to-back elections since 1956.
Still, the White House is taking steps to calm concerns about Biden’s candidacy. He scheduled a mostly virtual meeting for Wednesday with all Democratic state governors to assure them that he is physically and mentally capable of handling the intense four-month lead-up to Election Day and can defeat Trump again.
Senator Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island told a local television station in the northeastern state that he had been “appalled” by Biden’s debate performance and asked the White House for assurances about Biden’s “condition” … that it was a real anomaly, and not just the way he typically behaves.”
Peter Welch, a Democratic senator from Vermont, said the Biden campaign had adopted “a dismissive attitude toward people who raise issues for discussion.”
Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi admitted in an interview with MSNBC that she was hearing “mixed” feedback from Democratic donors about whether Biden was capable of running for president again.
For his part, Biden has acknowledged that he performed poorly against Trump during the nationally televised 90-minute showdown, the first of two scheduled debates. The other is scheduled for Sept. 10.
But the day after the debate, He seemed full of energy at a political rally in the state of North Carolina, even as he acknowledged: “I know I’m not a young man. I don’t walk as easily as I used to. I don’t speak as fluently as I used to. I don’t debate as well as I used to, but I know what I know: I can tell the truth!”
Biden added that he would not run for a second term if he did not believe that “with all my heart and soul I can do this.”
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