WASHINGTON (AP) — A Democratic lawmaker in the House of Representatives has become the first member of the party to publicly call for President Joe Biden to withdraw from the party’s candidacy for president, citing Biden’s debate performance against Donald Trump who failed to “effectively defend his many achievements.”
Rep. Lloyd Doggett of Texas said in a statement Tuesday that Biden should “make the painful and difficult decision to step down.”
“My decision to make these strong reservations public is not taken lightly and in no way diminishes my respect for all that President Biden has accomplished,” Doggett said. “Recognizing that, unlike Trump, President Biden’s first commitment has always been to our country, not to himself, I am confident that he will make the painful and difficult decision to step down. I respectfully urge him to do so.”
Doggett, who represents an Austin-based district and is serving his 15th term in Congress, is the first sitting lawmaker from his party to publicly state what many have been whispering privately behind closed doors since last week’s debate. Biden’s weak performance caused immediate panic even among his most ardent supporters, leading many to wonder whether the 81-year-old career politician was the strongest Democratic candidate to take on Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, in November.
“I represent the heart of a congressional district once represented by Lyndon Johnson,” said Doggett, who is the No. 2 Democrat on the powerful House Ways and Means Committee. “In very different circumstances, he made the painful decision to step down. President Biden should do the same.”
Biden himself admitted that the debate did not go well He has insisted he is ready to fight for a second term as president. The president and his campaign have not directly addressed Democrats’ criticism of his performance, instead sending spokespeople on the news networks to defend his performance as a bad night and to draw a clear contrast between himself and Trump.
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Beyond the White House, control of both chambers of Congress is also at stake in November, and Democrats find themselves defending far more Senate seats than Republicans. Democrats hold the Senate by a slim 51-49 majority, while Republicans control the House of Representatives by just a handful of seats.
Doggett’s explosive statement came minutes after former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat, told MSNBC she thought “it’s a legitimate question” whether Biden’s faltering performance was just “an episode or whether it’s a condition.”
“When people ask that question, it’s a legitimate question – from both candidates,” Pelosi said.
Nancy Pelosi said she had not spoken with Biden since the debate, but she stressed that the president was “on top of his game, in terms of knowing the issues and what’s at stake.”
It all adds up to a stunning and rapid turnaround for Biden, his campaign and his allies on Capitol Hill, who have spent much of the past few years battling criticism of the president’s fitness and defending his ability to serve another four-year term, at the end of which he would be 86.
But Biden’s faltering performance in the debate with Trump has shaken Democratic support to its foundations, with party members at all levels contemplating the possibility that he may no longer be the nominee.
Rep. Jamie Raskin, the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee and an influential voice within the caucus, raised the possibility this weekend that Biden could step down before the Democratic convention in August.
“So whether he’s the candidate or somebody else is, he’s going to be the keynote speaker at our convention,” Raskin told MSNBC of Biden. “He’s going to be the figure that we rally around moving forward.”
Other Democratic lawmakers said they were caught off guard by Biden’s rambling, raucous performance. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island said he had known Biden for years and served in the Senate with him, but had “never seen this happen before.”
“I think people want to make sure that this is a campaign that is ready to go and win, that the president and his team are upfront with us about his condition — that this was a real anomaly and not just the way he is these days,” Whitehouse told WPRI Monday.
And then there is a faction of the Democratic Party that is deeply disappointed with Biden’s performance, but points to the political reality that, with less than two months to go until the presidential election, Democratic National Convention and with four months to go until election day, the path to an alternative candidate is fraught with pitfalls and uncertainties.
Sen. Bernie Sanders, Biden’s former Democratic opponent, told The Associated Press in an interview Tuesday that while he was not convinced the president could win in November, he did not want him to step down, given what the party sees as the greatest threat to democracy in Trump.
“A presidential election is not a Grammy competition for best singer or entertainer. It’s about who has the best policies that impact our lives,” Sanders said. “I’m going to do everything I can to get Biden reelected.”
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Associated Press journalists Kevin Freking and Stephen Groves in Washington and Steve Peoples in New York contributed to this report.
