A group of 25 House Democrats is reportedly getting ready to ask President Joe Biden to drop out of the 2024 presidential election if he does not convince them otherwise in the coming days.
A House Democratic aide said the group is preparing to ask Biden to exit the race “if he seems shaky in the coming days,” according to Reuters. They would be joining Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-TX), who has publicly called on Biden to step down.
The Washington Examiner reached out to the Biden campaign for comment.
While stopping short of calling for Biden to step down, Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D-WA) gave a scathing review of Biden’s performance speaking with KATU News on Tuesday and cast doubt on his future.
“About 50 million Americans tuned in and watched that debate. I was one of them for about five very painful minutes,” she said. “We all saw what we saw. You can’t undo that, and the truth, I think, is that Biden is going to lose to Trump. I know that’s difficult, but I think the damage has been done by that debate.”
Despite this, she called on Democrats to accept whoever the nominee would be. “A core tenet of democracy is that you accept the results of an election, and the reality is that primary voting has already happened to a degree that Biden is the nominee,” Gluesenkamp Perez said.
The report added that centrist House Democrats in competitive districts were being berated with questions from their constituents, citing another aide. And it comes at the tail end of one of Biden’s worst days since taking office and worst since his shaky debate performance on Thursday. Aside from growing Democratic voices calling for Biden to step out, the president has also had to contend with a damning internal poll and former President Donald Trump’s sentencing being delayed until at least September.
Doggett became the first sitting House Democrat to call on Biden to withdraw from the presidential race. In a lengthy statement, he thanked Biden for what he has done so far but cited his debate performance as showing that he didn’t have what it took to be president anymore.
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“The president failed to effectively defend his many accomplishments and expose Trump’s many lies,” Doggett said in a statement. “Recognizing that unlike Trump, President Biden’s first commitment has always been to our country, not himself, I am hopeful that he will make the painful and difficult decision to withdraw. I respectfully call on him to do so.”
The president has shown no signs of intending to step down and is set to step up his damage control, beginning with a call on Wednesday with a group of Democratic governors seeking assurances.
