Two days after the disastrous TV duel with Donald Trump that mercilessly immortalized Joe Biden’s senile psycho-physical limitations, the big Democrats and the party’s top brass are rallying around him, trying to silence the alarmism and dodge the calls to immediately change horses. From Barack Obama to the Clintons, from Nancy Pelosi to the Democratic leaders of the House and Senate, up to potential replacements like California Governor Gavin Newsom, they are lining up without hesitation alongside old Joe.
He was the first to clarify that he is not throwing in the towel and that he intends to get up again after falling to the ground in the CNN ring. “I know I’m not young and I don’t debate as well as I used to, but I know how to do this job and I know how to tell the truth,” he tried to reassure, first at a rally in North Carolina and then at various electoral events in New York. Even Jill, perhaps the only one who could convince him to step aside, insists that he continue: “‘I don’t know what happened, I didn’t feel so good,’ Joe told me after the duel, ‘but I told him that we are not going to let 90 minutes of debate define the four years of your presidency,'” she told her husband’s supporters, drawing applause. But privately, the party and the base continue to discuss the possibility of a new, younger and more energetic candidate.
Meanwhile, the president’s performance is also on the agenda of a hastily organized call for Saturday by the Democratic National Committee. The majority of voters – 60% – say Biden should “definitely” or “probably” be replaced, according to a Morning Consult poll released by Axios. In the meantime, calls for Biden to step down are multiplying in the main American media. The biggest blow came from the New York Times, which in an editorial by the board describes the president as “the shadow of a great public servant” and asks him to retire “for the good of a country he has nobly served for so many years”, because “he is no longer his height”.
The Washington Post board also weighed in with an editorial on the opportunity for Joe Biden to pass the baton, “becoming a 21st-century Cincinnatus” and avoiding risks similar to those of the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, whose refusal to retire while Barack Obama was president allowed Trump to cement the conservative majority of wise men that overturned the Roe v. Wade ruling” on abortion.
But the WP is less peremptory than the NYT and underlines the risks of the operation, recalling that the Republican challengers prevailed in 1952 and 1968 after Presidents Harry S. Truman and Lyndon B. Johnson both decided not to seek re-election. With the aggravating factor that the divisions between the various souls of the party that Biden has managed to synthesize could now explode. The Atlantic is already talking about the “end of the Biden era”, while the Wall Street Journal reproaches the Dems for having ignored the alarms about the president’s state of health raised by at least various European leaders and diplomats since last summer, including during the last trip to Europe.
Awaiting a Supreme Court ruling on Monday on presidential immunity as a shield in trials, Trump continues his victory lap as Politico reveals that, if reelected, he would not only exit the Paris climate agreement again but could remove the United States from the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, the 1992 UN treaty that underpins global climate negotiations. In the meantime, he extends his hand to Nikki Haley, who made his first phone call since dropping out of the race for the White House in March to personally offer her support after announcing in May that she would vote for him. It was a “good conversation,” he said, warning Republicans that Dems will most likely replace Biden with “someone younger and more vibrant.”