Sen. Peter Welch (Vt.) has become the first Democratic senator to call for President Biden to step aside following his June debate.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe cannot unsee President Biden\u2019s disastrous debate performance,\u201d the freshman senator wrote in a Washington Post op-ed published Wednesday evening. \u201cWe cannot ignore or dismiss the valid questions raised since that night.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor the good of the country, I\u2019m calling on President Biden to withdraw from the race,\u201d Welch said.<\/p>\n
The senator cited polling \u201cshifts\u201d in Minnesota, New Hampshire, Nevada, Arizona and Georgia to make the case that the political peril was too great for Biden to stay in the race because of the risk that Donald Trump might win.<\/p>\n
Democratic lawmakers continue to question Biden\u2019s viability as a candidate and panic over their party\u2019s prospects in the fall. Twelve members of the House have called on Biden to step aside. Several senators privately expressed concerns in a closed-door meeting Tuesday that Biden has no path to victory in 2024 and that his unpopularity risks Democrats losing both the House and Senate. Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) said in a CNN interview Tuesday night that he feared Trump would win in a \u201clandslide\u201d but stopped short of asking Biden to step aside.<\/p>\n
Former House speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), in a TV interview on Wednesday, also urged Biden to quickly decide whether he is running, despite Biden insisting he is staying in the race.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re all encouraging him to make that decision, because time is running short,\u201d Pelosi said.<\/p>\n
On Thursday, top Biden officials Mike Donilon, Jen O\u2019Malley Dillon, and Steve Ricchetti will brief Senate Democrats at lunch at the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) invited them to address his caucus\u2019s concerns.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs I have made clear repeatedly publicly and privately, I support President Biden and remain committed to ensuring Donald Trump is defeated in November,\u201d Schumer said in a statement Wednesday evening.<\/p>\n
The position puts Welch at odds with his fellow Vermonter, Sen. Bernie Sanders, who told reporters Wednesday that he believed Biden could win and has urged people to focus on Biden\u2019s policies.<\/p>\n
Earlier on Wednesday, Welch said he hoped Biden would decide to exit the race after he saw the polling data. \u201cPresident Biden has made it clear that he\u2019s all in, but the evidence continues to come in about how an uphill battle is turning into an up-mountain battle,\u201d the senator said.<\/p>\n
Biden has told Hill Democrats that he is running and wants the debate about his candidacy to end.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am firmly committed to staying in this race, to running this race to the end, and to beating Donald Trump,\u201d he wrote them in a letter sent Monday.<\/p>\n
On Wednesday, Cook Political Report analyst David Wasserman described Trump\u2019s lead in the polls post-debate as \u201cthe most drastic shift in the race all year.\u201d<\/p>\n
In his op-ed, Welch praised Biden for his years of service, saying that he has \u201cunited\u201d the party and helped created a bench of elected officials who can defeat Trump. He called Vice President Harris a \u201ccapable\u201d leader and also praised other unnamed Democratic governors and senators.<\/p>\n
\u201cI understand why President Biden wants to run,\u201d he wrote. \u201cHe saved us from Donald Trump once and wants to do it again. But he needs to reassess whether he is the best candidate to do so. In my view, he is not.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Sen. Peter Welch (Vt.) has become the first Democratic senator to call for President Biden to step aside following his June debate. \u201cWe cannot unsee President Biden\u2019s disastrous debate performance,\u201d the freshman senator wrote in a Washington Post op-ed published Wednesday evening. \u201cWe cannot ignore or dismiss the valid questions raised since that night. \u201cFor […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":5964,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5963","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5963","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5963"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5963\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5964"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5963"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5963"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5963"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}