- Investor Whitney Tilson says she felt “cheated” after watching the Biden debate with Trump last week.
- Tilson said Biden should step down “if the man I saw in the debate is the real Joe Biden right now.”
- Biden donor says it would be a ‘waste of time and money’ to continue supporting him.
Investor Whitney Tilson, a longtime donor to President Joe Biden, says she is reconsidering her support for Biden after his faltering performance in last week’s presidential debate.
“I feel cheated. For months, my Republican friends have been sending me videos from Twitter and Fox News that appear to show Biden’s insanity,” Tilson wrote in a message posted to X on Saturday.
“While I was concerned, I was able to mostly dismiss these often misleadingly edited videos as the usual idiocy of the Republican attack machine because I remember how they tried to do the same thing to Hillary in 2016,” he continued. “But the debate changed all that.”
The former hedge fund manager said Biden should withdraw from the presidential race if his poor performance in Thursday’s debate was not an isolated incident.
Biden’s withdrawal, the longtime Democratic donor said, is now crucial if Democrats are to have any chance of beating former President Donald Trump in November.
“If this is as serious as what we all witnessed Thursday night, then he needs to put his country first and step down immediately,” Tilson wrote.
“I will fight until my last breath to stop Trump and his toxic Trumpism, but if the man I saw in the debate is the real Joe Biden right now, then it would be a waste of time and money to support him because he has almost no chance of beating Trump,” he continued.
Tilson added that he would still vote for Biden if he remained in office, but would instead “focus all of my energy on helping Democrats retain the Senate and retake the House.”
Representatives for Biden and Tilson did not immediately respond to BI’s requests for comment sent outside of normal business hours.
Remarks by high-profile donors like Tilson are likely a source of concern for the Biden campaign, which worked hard to appease supporters of Biden’s mental acuity after last week’s debate.
Biden’s performance Thursday was riddled with gaffes and missteps as he sought to make his case against his Republican rival, Trump.
The debate setback only heightened fears and concerns about Biden’s cognitive decline and fitness to occupy the Oval Office, with some even calling for the 81-year-old to be replaced as the presumptive Democratic nominee.
Billionaire Mark Cuban, who once said he would still vote for Biden even if the president “receives the last rites,” said Friday he was willing to consider swapping Biden for another candidate.
“Trump is much better than Biden when it comes to slogans and marketing. That’s the reality,” Cuban said in a message posted on X. “For that reason, I am also open to discussion about replacing Biden and/or Harris.”
“It’s not like Trump’s approval rating is high. It’s not. It could be an open door to find someone who would immediately surpass Trump,” he continued. “But if that doesn’t happen, I’ll still vote for Biden.”
