Following concerns over his performance in last week’s presidential debate, some of the country’s biggest media outlets have called on President Biden to step aside to allow another Democrat to take on former President Trump in November.
Biden’s performance in the first debate has raised alarm among some Democrats and supporters, as the president has struggled to organize his thoughts and counter many of Trump’s falsehoods. New polls show nearly half of Democrats say Biden should let another candidate win the party’s nomination.
The following major media outlets have called on Biden to withdraw from the election race:
The New York Times
The Times, which has been battling for months with the Biden campaign over its coverage of the president, said Biden should step aside “to serve his country.” A scathing editorial on friday.
Using its own logic, the Times editorial board acknowledged that while former President Trump poses serious risks to democracy, Biden is not the best candidate to defeat Trump.
“Thursday’s debate required the president to convince the American people that he was up to the rigorous demands of the job he was about to serve another term,” the commission wrote. “But voters cannot ignore a rather obvious fact: Mr. Biden is not the man he was four years ago.”
The magazine called Biden’s campaign a “reckless gamble” and said “the party has no reason to risk Trump’s reelection for Biden.”
The paper also criticized Trump’s own debate performance as “disqualifying” for his repeated lies and refusal to promise to accept the results of the November election.
New Yorker
New Yorker editor David Remnick said, Awakened Mark Twain, commenting on Biden’s performance in last week’s debate, commented on the president’s age.
“It’s sad to see it break down like this, but we all have to,” he quoted Twain.
Remnick sharply criticized Biden, saying he “no longer can flexibly and effectively communicate policy” and that the president has become “increasingly erratic.”
“As the centerpiece of the national vote, for him to remain the Democratic nominee would be not only self-delusion but a national endangerment,” he wrote.
The alternative, to have another candidate make the combination, would be an “act of patriotism.”
“To refuse to do so, to continue to insist that the good days outweigh the bad, and to ignore the inevitability of time and aging, not only jeopardizes his legacy, it jeopardizes the election, and most importantly, it jeopardizes the very issues and principles that Biden defined as central to his presidency and essential to its future,” Remnick wrote.
“There is no shame in growing older,” he concluded. “It is an honor to recognize the demands of the present.”
economist
Britain’s largest current affairs magazine Doubled The paper on Friday reiterated its call for Biden not to run again, saying in an editorial that Biden “would help pull America out of this emergency” by stepping down.
The Economist first said Biden should not run for a second term later in 2022, underscoring that position in a January cover story.
An article about last week’s debate called the president “confused, incoherent and, frankly, too weak to serve another four years in the world’s most difficult job.”
“Republicans have long argued that Biden’s power is waning, and the debate was his perfect opportunity to prove them wrong,” the magazine wrote. “Unfortunately, in front of millions of people, he not only failed to defeat his opponents, he presented irrefutable evidence to back them up.”
The magazine called for Vice President Harris to succeed Biden, but noted there are other Democrats who could easily replace him, including Cabinet members Pete Buttigieg and Gina Raimondo, Governors Gretchen Whitmer (Michigan), Josh Shapiro (Pennsylvania), Andy Beshear (Kentucky), Gavin Newsom (California) and Jared Polis (Colorado), and Senator Raphael Warnock (Georgia).
“Thursday’s debate was designed to answer the question of whether Biden is fit to be president, and in that respect it succeeded,” the magazine wrote. “It provided a clear answer in a campaign that now forces Americans to choose between two candidates they don’t want. Biden and his party have a chance to avert a dire fate for the country and the world, and they should seize it.”
Chicago Tribune
The Tribune, the largest newspaper in the Midwest, reported last week that the debate With just one word: “Enough.”
The magazine’s editorial board harshly criticized both Trump and Biden, calling them “two awful old men” and a “clown,” and said the idea of Biden serving another four years as president was “absurd.”
“Everyone knows that the Democratic Party, which effectively canceled the primaries, and the White House, which portrayed a fictitious cognitive ability, have concealed a reality that should have been visible, but which clearly hoped was not the case,” the committee wrote.
“Mr. Biden should announce, if we haven’t made that clear already, that he will be a one-term president who is awake to his potential, faced with the sole claim of being president of the United States,” he continued. “He can do so with honor, but he only “There’s no one else who can do that. Of course, his family can help, but again, only he can help.”
of Atlanta Journal-Constitution
The editorial board of the Journal Constitution also He didn’t mince words.“It’s time for Biden to pass the baton,” the article’s headline read.
The board relied on words from George Washington’s farewell address, saying there was a reasonable precedent for finding the right time to step down.
“With each passing year, I become more and more aware that retirement is both a welcome and a necessity,” Washington wrote.
“The shadow of retirement is now necessary for President Biden,” the committee said.
The committee also slammed the Biden campaign’s explanation that the president had a cold during the debate as “insulting.”
“It was not a bad night. It confirmed the worst fears of some of Biden’s most ardent supporters: after 36 years in the Senate, eight as Vice President and one term in the White House, age has finally caught up with him,” the committee wrote.
“Biden’s candidacy was based on his status as incumbent and the belief among Democratic leaders and pollsters that he had the best chance of beating Trump in November,” the paper continued. “That’s no longer the case.”
Other calls
Other newspapers were less direct: The editorial boards of The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal said the president should seriously consider resigning, but neither went so far as to explicitly recommend it.
“Democrats need to seriously consider whether they need to replace him as their top candidate, not just for the sake of the party, but for the sake of the country.” The Journal’s board of directors wrote: He portrayed the debate as one of patriotic decision-making, not one of betraying a sitting president.
Post bulletin board He acknowledged that Biden’s withdrawal does not guarantee a Democratic victory, citing the chaos at the 1968 Democratic Convention after Lyndon Johnson declined to serve a second term.
The battleground state of Pennsylvania’s largest newspaper went in a different direction. The editorial board of The Philadelphia Inquirer Called on President Trump to resign.
“President Joe Biden’s debate performance was disastrous,” the commission wrote, “but forgotten amid the lamentation was Donald Trump’s usual litany of lies, exaggerations, bigotry, ignorance and fear-mongering. His performance once again demonstrated that he is a danger to democracy and unfit for the office of the presidency.”
The Inquirer’s editorial team wrote that Trump was a “disingenuous carnival barker” who played too much golf and watched too much TV during his time in office.
While acknowledging Biden’s lackluster performance, he also offered encouragement for the president.
“Mr. Biden must demonstrate he is the right man for the job,” the committee wrote. “This much is clear: he has a substantial track record of delivering real results, including fighting the pandemic, combating climate change, investing in infrastructure, and supporting working families and the most vulnerable.”
“Only one of the debate participants was unfit to run for president,” the article continued. “The sooner Trump leaves the stage, the better off the country will be.”
