Democrats suggest ‘chatter’ on Biden stepping aside amid ‘panic’ over debate

Democratic operatives and political pundits suggested on Thursday that there are conversations happening about President Biden stepping aside before November’s election after a debate performance some called “dismal,” panicking some of his closest allies.

That revelation came in the moments after Biden wrapped up a CNN debate with former President Trump, a performance that was panned for his voice appearing hoarse, which the White House attributed to a cold, and garbling answers on questions relating to key issues for Democrats.

CNN’s John King kicked off the network’s political analysis of the event with this stark assessment: “This was a game changing debate in the sense that right now as we speak, there is a deep, a wide and a very aggressive panic in the Democratic Party.”

David Axelrod, a senior adviser to former President Obama who joined King on a roundtable, said the party was experiencing “shock.”

“I think there was a sense of shock, actually, at how he came out at the beginning of this debate. How his voice sounded. He seemed a bit disoriented. He did get stronger as the debate went on,” Axelrod said. “I think you’re going to hear discussions that I don’t know will lead to anything but there are going to be discussions about whether he should continue.”

Vice President Kamala Harris acknowledged later in a CNN interview with Anderson Cooper than Biden was off to a “slow start” but fought through a testy exchange to defend Biden on substance and policy.

A Biden adviser defended the president when asked about conversations about him stepping aside.

“President Biden is the only person who has ever beaten Donald Trump. He will do it again. Donald Trump did not give voters any reason to vote for him tonight. On the issues, the American people are with Joe Biden,” the adviser said.

But the debate left the political world shook, with some pundits on left-leaning MSNBC taking the time to describe what procedures would be required to replace Biden at the Democratic National Convention.

Back on CNN, Van Jones, who worked as a special adviser for Obama, gave a haunting assessment in which he lauded Biden but acknowledged the personal “pain” some might feel about the notion of asking the president to step aside.

“I think there’s a lot of people who are going to want to see him consider taking a different course now. We’re still far from our convention and there is time for this party to figure out a different way forward, if he will allow us to do that. But that was not what we needed from Joe Biden and it’s personally painful for a lot of people, it’s not just panic, its pain of what we saw tonight.”

King, meanwhile, said some conversations he’d heard about involved going to the White House.

“They’re having conversations about the president’s performance, which they think was dismal, which they think will hurt other people down the party in the ticket, and they’re having conversations about what they should do about it,” King said. “Some of those conversations include should we go to the White House and ask the president to step aside? Other… conversations are about should prominent Democrats go public with that call because they feel this debate was so terrible.”

He added that elected officials are among some of the Democrats who are asking “what do we do about this” after Biden’s performance, calling it a problem for the party.

Jen Psaki, who served as Biden’s first White House press secretary, said on MSNBC that “chatter is happening” not from campaign operatives but from Democratic lawmakers and outside operatives.

“The chatter is very distracting and it’s going to be very consuming for the campaign. Should he be replaced? They’re going to be answering that question instead of breaking through on attacking Trump,” she said.

“Is that chatter the same chatter… in two weeks when Trump is sentenced and Joe Biden goes out and has a strong couple of weeks? It may not be.  But it is incumbent upon the campaign to now dig out of this hole,” she added.

Former Biden White House communications director Kate Bedingfield said on CNN that Biden failed to assuage concerns voters have had for months when it comes to Biden’s age and whether he could win reelection and be up for the job of president for another four years.

“It was a really disappointing debate performance from Joe Biden,” she said. “His biggest issue that he had to prove to the American people was that he has the energy and the stamina, and he didn’t do that. And so, I think that is a concern.”

Following the debate, Biden spoke to a room of supporters at a watch party in Atlanta alongside first lady Jill Biden, where he gave a much more energetic performance in brief remarks to a crowd. That prompted MSNBC Rachel Maddow, who also assessed Biden’s performance poorly, to declare: “That Joe Biden would’ve killed in that debate.”

Brett Samuels contributed.

This story was updated at 12:41 p.m.