Following President Biden’s apparently weak performance, one Democrat predicted that people will likely want to discuss what they saw in Thursday night’s presidential debate.
“That’s certainly a question people want to talk about,” Rep. Joe Morrell (D-N.Y.) said when asked by Fox News Digital whether he thought Biden should be the Democratic presidential nominee.
A weak Democratic lawmaker declined to say whether Biden should be the candidate, saying “the president can make that decision himself.”
Democrats said they expected people would want to debate whether Biden should remain the party’s nominee in 2024. (Getty Images)
“But like I said, this is one night. I’m not going to judge a president’s performance on one night,” he added.
Even before Thursday night’s debate ended, reports were quickly emerging that Democrats were panicking about Biden and his ability to challenge former President Trump in November’s election. Biden’s raspy-voiced, soft-spoken and occasionally confused performance in Atlanta was enough to cause concern that analysts on CNN and MSNBC deemed him a poor performer.
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Rep. Morrell said he won’t spend a single night badmouthing President Biden. (Getty Images)
“Any lead performer, whether they’re a basketball player or an opera singer, is going to have a bad night,” Morrell explained, “so I’m going to conclude that he just had a bad night.”
While Democrats acknowledged that some may want to debate Biden’s position as a nominee or potential replacements, several other Democrats were reluctant to say what the president should do.
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President Biden and former President Trump debated on Thursday night. (Getty Images)
Asked by Fox News Digital, Democratic lawmakers in battleground districts declined to say whether they thought Biden should remain the nominee.
But many Democrats, including surrogates for the Biden campaign, said after the debate they still supported the president as their party’s nominee.
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Dingell said he would not join the “agony” in Washington. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
“I’m not going to sugar coat it,” Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-Mich.) said. You know, Joe Biden wasn’t the best, but Donald Trump confirmed all the fears I had.”
Asked whether Trump should still be the nominee, she said: “Look, I’m not going to bother with Washington. I know the kind of person I want to have as president.”
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Despite concerns swirling around Biden after the debate, the Biden campaign took a clear stance on Friday, with spokesman Seth Schuster telling Fox News Digital that “of course Biden is not backing down.”
“I know I’m not young. I can’t debate as well as I used to,” Biden said at a campaign rally in North Carolina, “but I know what I know. I know how to tell the truth.”
