OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
The media landscape has erupted in response to President Joe Biden’s horrific performance during the CNN Presidential Debate.
Responses have ranged from “dismal” critiques to outspoken requests from the left for him to get out of the 2024 contest.
Because of Biden’s comments, there have been discussions on MSNBC regarding whether the presumed Democratic nominee should withdraw from the contest to clear the way for an August convention contest for the nomination.
“I was on the phones for some of it after that became clear and there is a conversation happening inside Biden’s circle, and certainly a much more frank conversation happening inside the Democratic coalition,” Nicolle Wallace said. “And I think there will be stories of a lot of concern about the performance tonight.”
Politico relayed even more dire perspectives in articles, quoting Democratic operatives saying, “Biden is toast.” Another piece quoted an adviser of big Democratic donors that was even more blunt.
“Our only hope is that he bows out, we have a brokered convention, or dies,” the donor adviser said. “Otherwise we are f**king dead.”
“I mean it’s not great all around,” a down-ballot Democrat for statewide office told Politico. “Our president has a speech impediment, a cold, and is 81.”
“No one expected a master class in debating from Joe Biden, but no one expected this nose dive,” a senior aide to top Democratic officials told the publication. “He was bad on message, bad on substance, bad on counter punching, bad on presentation, bad on non-verbals. There was no bright spot in this debate for him. The only bright spot is that this happened in June and not October.”
CNN’s John King highlighted the “very aggressive panic in the Democratic Party” that started in the early stages of the debate.
“This was a game-changing debate in the sense that right now, as we speak, there is a deep, a wide and a very aggressive panic in the Democratic Party. It started minutes into the debate and it continues right now,” King said.
“It involves party strategists, it involves elected officials, it involves fundraisers. And they‘re having conversations about the president’s performance, which they think was dismal, which they think will hurt other people down the party in the ticket, and they‘re having conversations about what they should do about it,” King added.
King’s CNN colleague Kasie Hunt similarly wrote on X, “The voice, open-mouthed look, and visual contrast between President Biden and former President Trump all have Democrats I’m talking to nearly beside themselves watching this debate.”
Bloomberg Opinion editor Tim O’Brien wrote on X: “Trump’s taken control of the momentum of this debate — despite lying and living in an alternate reality — and Biden simply comes across as a somewhat dazed punching bag.”
New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, a longtime Biden ally, wrote: “I cannot remember a more heartbreaking moment in American presidential campaign politics in my lifetime — precisely because of what it revealed: Joe Biden, a good man and a good president, has no business running for re-election.”
New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof wrote on X: “I wish Biden would reflect on this debate performance and then announce his decision to withdraw from the race, throwing the choice of Democratic nominee to the convention. Someone like @gretchenwhitmer or @SherrodBrown or @SecRaimondo could still jump in and beat Trump,” Kristof added, referring to Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown, and Biden’s Commerce Sec. Gina Raimondo.”
Alyssa Farah Griffin of “The View” said: “If Biden truly believes Democracy is on the line, he should step aside and let another Democrat step in to take on Trump. Put the country first.”
Vox correspondent Eric Levitz wrote: “Joe Biden should save his legacy by ending his candidacy.”
Financial Times associate editor Edward Luce panicked on X, writing: “This is a disaster. Democrats need to end their self-imposed censorship on Biden and fix this. There’s two months until the convention. Other countries hold general elections in less time than that.”
CNN commentator Van Jones called for Biden to step aside, saying: “I love that guy as a good man. He loves his country. He’s doing the best that he can. But he had a test to meet tonight, to restore confidence of the country and of the base, and he failed to do that. And I think there’s a lot of people who are going to want to see him consider taking a different course now. We’re still far from our convention and there is time for this party to figure out a different way forward if he will allow us to do that. But that was not what we needed from Joe Biden. And it’s personally painful for a lot of people. It’s not just panic. It’s pain of what we saw tonight.”
