US President Joe Biden pauses during the CNN Presidential Debate at the CNN Studios on June 27, 2024 in Atlanta, Georgia. President Biden and Republican presidential candidate former US President Donald Trump face off in the first presidential debate of the 2024 campaign.
Justin Sullivan | Afp | Getty Images
The New York Times Editorial Board on Friday urged President Joe Biden to drop out of the presidential race against Donald Trump, citing the Democrat’s poor performance in the debate the night before.
“The president appeared Thursday night as the shadow of a great public servant,” the Times’ editorial said. “He struggled to explain what he would achieve in a second term. He struggled to respond to Mr Trump’s challenges. He struggled to hold Mr. Trump accountable for his lies, failures and creepy schemes. Struggle many times to get to the end of a sentence.”
“Mr. Biden has said that he is the candidate with the best chance of confronting this threat of tyranny and defeating it. His argument rests heavily on the fact that he defeated Mr. Trump in 2020,” it said. “That is no longer a sufficient rationale for why Mr. Biden should be the Democratic nominee this year.”
The sensational article came a day after Biden gave a poor performance in his first debate against Trump in the 2024 race for the White House.
“It should be remembered that Mr. Biden challenged Mr. Trump to this verbal duel,” the editorial said. “He set the rules and insisted on a date months earlier than any previous general election debate. He understood that he had to address long-standing public concerns about his mental acuity and that he had to do it as soon as possible.”
“The truth that Mr. Biden has to face now is that he failed his own test.”
The article comes as several Democrats and fundraisers are considering pushing Biden to drop out of the contest.
The Times editorial board has for decades been the leading editorial voice of liberal newspapers in the United States.
But in recent years, the paper’s news division has been criticized by some liberals for its coverage of Hillary Clinton, the 2016 Democratic nominee, and Biden.
Biden, for his part, gave no indication that he was considering dropping out of the race on Friday.
While nodding to his troubled debate performance, Biden repeated his criticism of Trump in a speech in North Carolina and in social media posts on X.
“I don’t walk as easily as I used to. I don’t talk as smoothly as I used to. I don’t talk as well as I used to,” Biden said at a campaign event on Friday. “But I know what I know: I know how to tell the truth. I know right from wrong and I know how to do this job. I know how to get things done.”
“I give you my word as Biden that I wouldn’t run again if I didn’t believe with all my heart and soul that I can do this job, because frankly, the stakes are too high.”
Replacing the Democratic presidential nominee at this point in the election cycle would not only be politically dangerous for the party, it would also be very difficult. The only possible way for him to replace Biden would be to willingly drop out of the race.
In response to the Times editorial, a Biden campaign aide told NBC: “The last time Joe Biden lost the endorsement of the New York Times editorial board, he did very well.”
