Pressmediaofindia
Related Articles
07-07-2024
WASHINGTON: President Joe Biden’s Friday night TV interview does not seem to have quelled an uprising within his own party to end his re-election campaign after a halting debate performance against Donald Trump.
A fifth House Democrat, Angie Craig of Minnesota, on Saturday joined colleagues in calling for the president to step aside, and reports suggest more could follow.
In his rare prime-time ABC News interview, Biden dismissed his debate performance as just a “bad episode” and said only the “Lord Almighty” could convince him to end his bid for re-election.
Biden, 81, is spending Saturday at his family home in Delaware before two public events on Sunday.
There is growing unease among Democrats, although no senior members of the party have called for him to quit.
Some polls show Trump’s lead over Biden widening, and many are concerned about losing the presidency and House seats, along with the Senate majority, if he leads the ticket.
Ms Craig, who is running in a competitive district in Minnesota, said on Saturday that she did not believe Biden could “effectively campaign and win against Donald Trump”.
She said that while she respected his decades of service, “there is simply too much at stake to risk a second Donald Trump presidency”.
Minutes after the ABC interview, Texas congressman Lloyd Doggett, the first House Democrat to call for Biden to drop out, said on CNN that the need “is more urgent tonight than when I first called for it”.
He said the longer it took Biden to make a decision to withdraw, the “more difficult for a new person to come on board who can defeat Donald Trump”.
Other House Democrats including Congressman Mike Quigley of Illinois and Seth Moulton of Massachusetts called on Biden to withdraw on Friday.
They join Arizona’s Raul Grijalva’s call on Wednesday.
In his interview, Biden declined to take a cognitive test and make the results public to prove he was fit to serve another term.
“I have a cognitive test every single day. Every day I have that test – everything I do (is a test),” he told George Stephanopoulos.
This response did not resonate with Democratic congresswoman Judy Chu of California, who told Politico that his answer was “unsettling and not particularly convincing” and that she would “be watching closely… especially in spontaneous situations”.
During the 22-minute ABC interview, Biden rejected suggestions allies may ask him to stand aside, saying “it’s not going to happen”.
Stephanopoulos pressed the president on his capacity to serve another term.
“I don’t think anybody’s more qualified to be president or win this race than me,” Biden said.
Biden, who is due to speak at a rally in Pennsylvania on Sunday, thanked Vice-President Kamala Harris for her support during the ABC News interview.
Ms Harris has emerged as a top contender to replace him if he were to step down.
In an interview on Saturday at the Essence black culture festival in New Orleans, the vice-president said that November’s election was crucial to American democracy, but made no mention of Democratic disquiet about Biden.
“Understand what we all know in 122 days, we each have the power to decide what kind of country we want to live in,” she said. (Int’l Monitoring Desk)
