Will Joe Go? Democrats Begin to Line up Against the President
President Biden made the rounds this weekend at a church in battleground Pennsylvania, joking slightly about the escalating questions regarding his age and mental faculties.
"I know I look like I'm 40 years old," Biden quipped. "I've been around a little bit. It's heck turning 40. All kidding aside... I have never been more optimistic about America's future if we stick together."
One group sticking together, however, seems to be Democrats still questioning Biden's stance after his dismal debate performance. "He should be mopping the floor against Donald Trump," Democrat Rep. Adam Schiff of California told Meet the Press on Sunday. "Joe Biden is running against a criminal. It should not be even close and there's only one reason it is close and that's the president's age."
Biden's one-on-one interview with ABC's George Stephanopoulos didn't quiet the critics. At one point Biden couldn't even remember if he watched his debate performance. "I don't think I did, no," Biden said.
The president denied his bad poll numbers too when Stephanopoulos told him he has never seen a president with a 36% approval rating get reelected. "Well, I don't believe that's my approval rating," Biden responded. "That's not what our polls show."
It all proved too much for staunch Democrats like former Obama Advisor David Axelrod who wrote an Op-Ed titled, 'Biden's Defiant Delusion.'
"Some of it I found sad," Axelrod told CNN about Biden's performance in the ABC interview. "He seems not to be able to compute the fact that people have these questions about him."
Compounding the problems, there was news this weekend revealing White House logs showing that President Biden's physician met with a Parkinson's disease specialist earlier this year. Still, Biden presses on, refusing to take an independent neurological test and release the results. "Look. I have a cognitive test every single day," Biden said during the interview. Apparently he was referring to his daily duties as president.
"Every day I have that test. Everything I do. You know, not only am I campaigning, but I'm running the world." But that leads to the question of what it would take for him to no longer run for a second term. "Look. I mean, if the Lord Almighty came down and said, 'Joe, get out of the race,' I'd get out of the race," Biden explained. But then added, "The Lord Almighty's not coming' down."
When pressed about a scenario where his allies, friends, and supporters say they're concerned they will lose the House and the Senate in 2024 if he stays in, Biden had a blunt answer. "I'm not going to answer that question. It's not going to happen."
However, Congressional Democrats are increasingly seeing things a bit differently, with more calling on Biden to get out of the race. This weekend on a private conference call, at least four senior House Democrats said the president should step aside, making the drumbeat louder and possibly unavoidable.
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