Fourth Democratic House member calls on Biden to exit 2024 race after clips of ABC interview released
Rep. Mike Quigley (D-Ill.) on Friday became the fourth Democratic member of the House of Representatives to call on President Biden to end his re-election effort.
The Illinois Democrat made a direct plea to the 81-year-old president during an appearance on MSNBC, after clips of Biden’s much-anticipated interview with ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos aired.
“Mr. President, your legacy is set. We owe you the greatest debt of gratitude. The only thing that you can do now to cement that for all time and prevent utter catastrophe is to step down and let someone else do this,” Quigley said during an appearance on “All In with Chris Hayes.”
The congressman argued that with Biden off the ticket, “Day One we’re back in a dogfight” with former President Donald Trump.
“All of the sudden, all the things we’re talking with President Biden … we’ve got a lot more we can talk about with Trump,” Quigley said, claiming that the 78-year-old presumptive GOP nominee “has cognitive issues.”
Reps. Lloyd Doggett (D-Texas), Seth Moulton (D-Mass.) and Raul Grijalva (D-Ariz.) had previously called on Biden to step aside.
Earlier this week, Reuters reported that as many as 25 Democrats in the House are preparing to call for the president to end his campaign.
Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) has also reportedly been working to organize a meeting between the president and Democratic Senators, where they would ask Biden to drop out of the 2024 presidential race, according to the Washington Post.
Biden, in his interview with Stephanopoulos, could not definitively remember if he watched a replay of his June 27 showdown with Trump.
“I don’t think I did, no,” he told the “This Week” host.
What to know about the fallout from President Biden's debate performance:
- President Biden’s poor performance in the first 2024 presidential debate has left even some Democrats unsure of his fitness for office and future as the party’s candidate.
- Former President Barack Obama admitted that Biden had a “bad” debate, while his rival former President Donald Trump suggested that he was in a “trance” and “choked.”
- Biden told a crowd at a North Carolina rally the day after the debate that he doesn’t “debate as well as I used to” — but insisted that he can still “do this job.”
- The New York Times editorial board called on the president to serve the country by dropping out of the race. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution published a similar editorial a day later.
- Biden gathered with his family at Camp David to assess the campaign’s future, with his son Hunter reportedly pushing for him to stay in the race. Family members questioned whether the president’s top advisers should be fired after the disastrous debate.
- In a pre-taped interview with ABC anchor George Stephanopoulos, Biden claimed that his “bad episode” at the debate was the result of a cold and not any cognitive issues.
- Biden has rejected calls for him to step down from fellow Democrats, insisting to Stephanopoulos that he is the most qualified to win the election. At a Wisconsin rally, he declared that he is “running and going to win again.”
Trump campaign adviser Steven Cheung mocked Biden’s answer on social media.
“How the hell do you not know if you re-watched the debate?” Cheung wrote on X.
Quigley said he found Biden’s response to the question “disturbing,” during an appearance on CNN.
When Stephanopoulos asked if he knew how poorly he was performing at the time, Biden launched into a rambling statement.
“The whole way I prepared, nobody’s fault, mine. Nobody’s fault but mine. I — I prepared what I usually would do sitting down as I did come back with foreign leaders or National Security Council for explicit detail,” the president said.
“And I realized partway through that, you know, all — I get quoted the New York Times had me down ten points before the debate, nine now or whatever the hell it is. The fact of the matter is, what I looked at is that he also lied 28 times. I couldn’t — I mean, the way the debate ran, not my fault, nobody else’s fault, no one else’s fault,” he added.
“This is a pretty incoherent answer,” pollster Nate Silver wrote on X.
“I’m there now,” the FiveThirtyEight founder added, indicating that based on Biden’s ABC News interview, he now believes the president should drop out of the presidential race.
“Something is clearly wrong here,” Silver said.
ABC News journalist Jonathan Karl reported after the full interview aired that for some Democrats Biden’s sitdown raised “new concerns.”
Particularly concerning, according to Karl, was Biden’s response when asked how he would feel if Trump defeats him in November.
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“I’ll feel as long as I gave it my all and I did the goodest job as I know I can do – that’s what this is about,” the president said.
Karl reported that a prominent Biden ally responded, “Wow,” when they heard the president’s response.
“With the greatest respect, all that really matters is avoiding a second Trump presidency,” Quigley said in reaction to Biden’s bizarre answer.
The congressman also said that it appeared as if the president was “in absolute denial” about polling indicating that he stands to lose the election to Trump.
David Axelrod, a political consultant and former adviser to President Barack Obama, said he didn’t believe Biden did enough in the interview to change the minds of Democratic voters who are concerned about his November chances.
“Some of it I found sad,” Axelrod said during an appearance on CNN.
“He seems not able to compute the fact people have these questions about him,” the ex-Obama adviser said, reffering to questions about Biden’s cognitive abilities.
In response to Biden’s insistence that he takes ‘”a full neurological test every day” because of his duties as commander in chief, Axelrod noted that “75% of the American people say he fails” those daily tests, referring to polling where large majorities of voters say Biden is not fit for office.
Axelrod argued that Biden is “hiding from reality” by refusing to heed warnings from Democratic lawmakers, strategists and polls that say Trump is pulling away in the race, “and the reality is grim right now.”
Former White House press secretary Ari Fleischer described the interview as “the worst of all worlds” for Democrats.
“Biden committed no real flubs. He didn’t do anything to force himself out of the race. But he appears old, weak, tentative and he’s losing to Trump,” the former Bush White House official wrote on X.
“So Biden will dig in and stay. The Ds are stuck,” he added.
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) likened the interview to a “therapy session,” arguing that Stephanopoulos was “begging President Biden to get out of the race.”
“What we saw tonight was chilling,” Graham tweeted.
“If you believe President Biden is as fit now as he was when he took office, as he claims, you need a cognitive test.”
