US Democratic Party members reacted negatively to the performance of their candidate Joe Biden, but ruled out replacing the president as the Democratic Party’s nominee after his weak debate performance and urged party members to focus on the implications of a second Donald Trump presidency.
After days of speculation over Biden’s poor debate performance against Trump, Democratic leaders have strongly rejected calls for their party to pick a younger presidential candidate for the November 5 election.
Calls for Biden to resign have been relentless since Thursday, and a CBS poll conducted after the debate showed that the number of Democrats who believe Biden should not run for president rose 10 points to 46 per cent from 36 per cent in February. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution said in an editorial on Sunday.:
The unfortunate truth is that Biden should withdraw from the race, for the good of the nation he has served so admirably for half a century. The shade of retirement is now necessary for President Biden.
Democratic leaders rejected this. Georgia Democratic Senator Raphael Warnock, one of several Democrats seen as a possible replacement for Biden, responded:
Absolutely not.
He told NBC’s Meet the Press programme:
Bad debates happen. The question is, “Who has Donald Trump ever shown up for other than himself and people like himself?” I’m with Joe Biden, and it’s our assignment to make sure that he gets over the finish line come November.
Biden spoke shakily and inarticulately during the debate, stumbling over his words several times. Some Democrats later said privately that the performance could be a disqualifying factor.
Biden family blames debate organisers for the failure
The family of US President Joe Biden blamed his campaign’s top advisers for his poor debate performance, POLITICO and The New York Times (NYT) quoted sources as saying.
The family lists senior advisor Anita Dunn, her husband, the head of state’s lawyer and opponent’s performer at debate rehearsals, Bob Bauer, and the former chief of staff who oversaw debate preparations, Ron Klein, as among those responsible.
Among their mistakes, POLITICO’s interlocutors cited Biden’s unpreparedness for a more aggressive debate style, his focus on defending his accomplishments instead of outlining second-term prospects, and the president’s fatigue. NYT sources wondered why Biden, who came to the debate with a summer tan, was made up so that he looked dead pale.
John Morgan, a top Democratic donor close to the president’s brother Frank Biden, publicly criticised the advisers. He called the advisers’ actions “political negligence.” He said:
It’s like if you took a professional fighter who was going to have a title fight and put him in a sauna for 15 hours and then said, go fight.
At the same time, Biden himself still trusts his advisers and does not place blame on them, the interlocutor told US media. Other sources also denied that the family blames the advisers.
Several Democratic interlocutors of the publication reminded that it is unfair to blame Biden’s subordinates for his own mistakes and called what is happening a search for a “scapegoat” aimed at removing the blame from the candidate himself. They noted that neither family members, Morgan nor other critics had been at the training sessions before the debate and didn’t know how they went about it.
Biden’s campaign headquarters blamed the organiser of the debate, CNN. In their opinion, the moderators should have checked Donald Trump’s statements more often, warned Biden which camera would film him while he was not speaking, and applied better makeup that did not make the president look pale.
Earlier, Biden campaign spokesman Seth Schuster said the US leader had no intention of dropping out of the presidential race after a poor debate performance against former President Donald Trump.
Italian journalist and activist Maurizio Belpietro commented on the Biden situation on X:
You didn’t have to wait for the verdict of a televised confrontation with Donald Trump to discover that Joe Biden is a confused man, unable to lead the world’s first nuclear power.
