The left-liberal New York Times editorial board calls on Joe Biden to drop out of the presidential race, noting that the president is now a “shadow” of his former self and has great difficulty even completing his sentences.
Joe Biden performed so poorly in the televised presidential debate that even many of his own party colleagues were embarrassed, describing his performance as incoherent, confused and strange, and some began to argue that he is no longer fit to run for president.
The New York Times editorial board agrees and is now publicly calling on Biden to drop out of the race.
“The president appeared on Thursday night as the shadow of a great public servant. He struggled to explain what he would accomplish in a second term. He struggled to respond to Mr. Trump’s provocations. He struggled to hold Mr. Trump accountable for his lies, his failures and his chilling plans. More than once, he struggled to make it to the end of a sentence”, the editorial board writes.
“The greatest public service Mr. Biden can now perform is to announce that he will not continue to run for re-election. As it stands, the president is engaged in a reckless gamble. There are Democratic leaders better equipped to present clear, compelling and energetic alternatives to a second Trump presidency. There is no reason for the party to risk the stability and security of the country by forcing voters to choose between Mr. Trump’s deficiencies and those of Mr. Biden. It’s too big a bet to simply hope Americans will overlook or discount Mr. Biden’s age and infirmity that they see with their own eyes,” it continues.
“A caricature of himself”
The NYT’s political leadership insists that it would still support Biden if the choice was between him and Trump, but that a better-suited candidate would have been desirable.
Biden campaign manager Mitch Landrieu, for his part, claims to have “100 percent confidence in Joe Biden”, adding that only Biden himself can decide whether or not to continue his campaign.
The paper is far from alone in criticizing Biden’s performance in the presidential debate, with David Axelrod, himself a Democrat and CNN political commentator, noting that Biden “seemed a little disoriented” and another CNN analysis describing it as “Biden appeared onstage with a soft, halting voice and an open-mouthed, staring look”.
MSNBC, another left-liberal network, analyzed that “been a uniformly negative reaction to Biden’s performance tonight”.
“This was about revealing who Donald Trump was, but it was also Joe Biden battling a caricature of himself as an enfeebled person… And he did nothing to disabuse, I think, the country of the notion that he is very old and was lost frequently in that debate”, said anchor David Axelrod.
