More than a dozen congressional Democrats have now expressed concerns about the viability of President Biden’s re-election campaign — with a third lawmaker calling on Thursday for the commander in chief to step aside and potentially allow his vice president to accept the party’s nomination.
“President Biden has done enormous service to our country, but now is the time for him to follow in one of our founding father, George Washington’s footsteps and step aside to let new leaders rise up and run against Donald Trump,” Rep. Seth Moulton (D-Mass.) told WBUR radio on Thursday.
“The exact mechanism that we should follow in order for other leaders to rise up, whether it’s some sort of primary process, whether it goes directly to Vice President [Kamala] Harris, I’m not sure about that, that’s yet to be determined,” Moulton added.
At least two other House Democrats — Raúl Grijalva of Arizona and Lloyd Doggett of Texas — broke ranks earlier this week to urge the 81-year-old president to exit the 2024 race after his disastrous June 27 debate performance against Trump.
As of Wednesday, Moulton had been one of a dozen or so congressional Democrats expressing concerns about Biden’s mental acuity, given his subdued and scattered demeanor during the CNN forum.
But the Massachusetts Democrat now says hundreds of his fellow party members agree that Biden cannot defeat his Republican opponent in the Nov. 5 general election — and are weighing other candidate options.
Sens. Peter Welch (D-Vt.) and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), as well as 10 House Democrats, are the only members of Congress so far to publicly express their loss of confidence in their party’s leader, though they have stopped short of directly calling on Biden to drop out of the race.
“I think it’s a legitimate question to say, is this an episode, or is this a condition?” House Speaker emerita Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said Tuesday on MSNBC of Biden’s debate debacle.
“Both candidates owe whatever test you want to put them to, in terms of their mental acuity and their health,” she argued, without immediately clarifying whether she wants Biden and Trump to submit to cognitive testing.
Fellow California Democratic Rep. Jared Huffman went further on Thursday and said Biden’s debate flop couldn’t be written off.
“It wasn’t just one bad night. It was a bad night that may have locked in a really unfortunate narrative about President Biden’s age and fitness, and that narrative could be very hard to undo,” Huffman told CNN. “So we have just got to be honest about that.”
Despite the president’s campaign dismissing the “bedwetting brigade” of Democrats calling for him to drop out, Biden has lost ground in 2024 election polling since his verbal sparring match with Trump, 78.
A New York Times/Siena College poll had the 45th president in the lead by eight percentage points (49%-41%) among registered voters — and a Wall Street Journal survey found Trump beating Biden by six points (48%-42%) among the same cohort.
“We needed a boost from Thursday — we didn’t get it — and the campaign has been very, I think, arrogant in their response,” said Rep. Scott Peters (D-Calif.) in a Wednesday interview with CBS 8 San Diego.
In a pre-recorded radio hit that aired in the battleground state of Wisconsin on July 4, Biden admitted he “had a bad night” against his GOP opponent.
“I screwed up, I made a mistake and, but I learned from my father, when you get knocked down, just get back up,” he said on “The Earl Ingram Show.”
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) did not speak privately with the president about the debate until nearly a week after it took place.
Both have since affirmed their support for his candidacy, with Schumer telling reporters on Tuesday that he believed Biden was mentally fit enough to serve another term, according to NBC News.
The Democratic National Committee has also issued misleading talking points to push Biden as the party’s “only” candidate option — despite insiders spilling to media outlets that there is a path to replacing him.
Behind the scenes, at least 25 House Democrats are reportedly circulating a letter that will call for Biden to drop out of the 2024 race, though it is unclear when or if that letter will ever be made public.
In addition, no Democrats have said publicly that the president should immediately resign from office, though some Republicans have suggested Biden’s physical and mental decline is accelerated enough to warrant that.
“Democrat Party elites and their media mouthpieces are now obsessed with replacing Biden on the ballot,” Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio), a potential vice presidential pick for Trump, posted Wednesday on X.
“But if he’s unfit to run for president, he certainly isn’t fit to *be* president,” Vance said. “If he doesn’t run again, he needs to resign as Commander in Chief.”
