In an editorial published Friday, the New York Times editorial board called on President Joe Biden to step aside. 2024 race after that poor discussion performance Thursday night in Atlanta.
“The clearest way for Democrats to defeat a candidate defined by his lies is to be honest with the American public: admit that Mr. Biden cannot continue the race, and create a process to elect someone more qualified to succeed him. Beat Mr. Trump in November” the editorial board wrote.
The opinion acknowledged that the end of his campaign “would go against all of Mr. Biden’s personal and political instincts” and emphasized that it was Biden himself who challenged former President Donald Trump to the debate.
“The reality that Mr. Biden must now face is that he has failed his own test,” the board said.
The Biden campaign reversed the editorial board’s decision in a statement Friday.
“The last time Joe Biden lost the endorsement of the New York Times editorial board, it went pretty well for him,” said campaign co-chair Cedric Richmond, previously White House aide and congressman from Louisiana.
The editorial board of the newspaper supported at the end Biden only in the 2020 general election confirmed Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn. and Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., during the Democratic primary earlier that year.
At the time, the council expressed concerns about Biden’s age, saying Biden, then 77, should “pass the torch to a new generation of political leaders.”
Trump’s campaign responded to the editorial board’s decision, saying that Biden “is the current president, he’s the Democratic nominee, he’s also said he’s not going to drop out, and it’s too late to change that.”
Biden has given no indication that he plans to step aside, but he has the option of withdrawing before formally running for office at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in August.
It comes as an editorial Democrats eexpressed alarm signal after the president’s Thursday night debate performance, punctuated by a raspy voice and rhetorical missteps as he tripped over his words and apparently lost his train of thought.
Biden defended His ability to serve in Friday’s speech was full of energy that was missing when he debated last night.
“I know I’m not young,” Biden told supporters in Raleigh, North Carolina, on Friday afternoon. “I don’t walk as easily as before. I don’t speak as easily as before. I don’t argue like I used to, but I know what I know – I know how to tell the truth!”
81-year-old Biden is the oldest president in American history. His opponent, former President Donald Trump, is the second-oldest person ever to hold the office of president.
Olympia Sonnier contributed.