A number of former aides to President Obama were sounding the alarm following President Biden’s disappointing debate against former President Trump.
Former Obama campaign manager David Plouffe called it a “DEFCON 1 moment” during an appearance Thursday night on MSNBC.
“And I think that’s a tragedy, because I think Trump had so many openings that you could have just scissored him up on tonight,” he said.
Thursday night’s debate performance by Biden, in which he spoke with a raspy voice and stumbled over his words, sparked widespread fear among Democrats.
“Obviously that debate was a f‑‑‑ing disaster,” former Obama administration speechwriter and “Pod Save America” co-host Jon Favreau posted Friday morning on the social platform X. “We have to beat Donald Trump. We have to have a nominee who can do that.”
Former Obama national security spokesperson Tommy Vietor, another “Pod Save America” co-host, wrote Friday on X that people “can’t say that the future of American democracy is at stake and then tell anyone concerned about the debate last night to stop bed wetting or grow a spine.”
“It’s f‑‑‑ing insulting to people who care deeply about the country and know how much is on the line,” Vietor continued.
Former Obama senior adviser David Axelrod, now a CNN pundit, said the party was rattled in the wake of the debate, and that it would force a discussion over whether Biden should continue.
“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 on CNN. “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.”
The White House said Biden had a cold during the debate, and his campaign insisted Friday that he’ll stay in the race.
“Of course he’s not dropping out,” Biden campaign spokesperson Seth Schuster told The Hill in the wake of the debate.
Former White House national security adviser Ben Rhodes, in a post on X, said he worries about what the debate “looks like to young people in this country,” who will be key in November.
“Telling people they didn’t see what they saw is not the way to respond to this,” Rhodes said in another post Thursday.