Members of the media, editorial boards and more have called on President Biden to step down after his performance in the first debate against Donald Trump.
President Biden is facing growing calls from members of the media, editorial boards, pundits and more to drop out of the race following a debate performance that caused anxiety among members of the Democratic Party.
Newspapers across the country and even his own fervent supporters in the press are begging him to get out for fear of former President Trump winning again, but so far he isn’t budging.
„Biden is not the man he was four years ago“, The New York Times editorial board wrote on Friday. „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.“
The editorial board went on to call Biden’s candidacy a „reckless gamble“ and said that there are other Democrats „better equipped to present clear, compelling and energetic alternatives to a second Trump presidency.“
The New York Times‘ Maureen Dowd compared Biden to Trump after the debate and suggested the president was being selfish by remaining in the race.
„He’s putting himself ahead of the country. He’s surrounded by opportunistic enablers“, Dowd said. „He has created a reality distortion field where we’re told not to believe what we’ve plainly seen. His hubris is infuriating. He says he’s doing this for us, but he’s really doing it for himself.“
Dowd said Biden „succumbed to behavior redolent of Trump“, and asserted it was not just an „off night“ for the president.
Many of the figures calling on Biden to withdraw from the race have made clear they are strong supporters and even „love“ the president.
One of Biden’s close friends, Tom Friedman, a columnist at the New York Times, declared in a column published Friday that the president had no business running for re-election. He said the debate performance by Biden made him „weep.“
Fellow Times columnists Nicholas Kristof and Paul Krugman also urged Biden to exit the stage; like Friedman, they fawned over his presidency as a progressive success but said he should not run again. Liberal journalist Jonathan Alter added Biden was „too old to serve“, and columnist David Ignatius has reiterated past calls on Biden to step aside as well.
A well-known watcher of MSNBC’s „Morning Joe“, if the president tuned in on Friday, he would have seen host Joe Scarborough saying that while he loved Biden, it was time to talk about him leaving the race.
„If he were CEO and he turned in a performance like that, would any corporation in America, any Fortune 500 corporation in America keep him on as CEO?“ Scarborough asked.
