Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) is calling on Democrats to end the “circular firing squad” after two weeks of a public debate over whether President Biden should continue his presidential campaign after his disastrous June 27 debate performance.
“Enough! Mr. Biden may not be the ideal candidate, but he will be the candidate and should be the candidate. And with an effective campaign that speaks to the needs of working families, he will not only defeat Mr. Trump but beat him badly. It’s time for Democrats to stop the bickering and nit-picking,” Sanders wrote in a New York Times op-ed on Saturday.
Sanders has stood by the president even as many Democrats, including 19 Congressional Democrats, have called on him to stand down after the June 27 debate. During the debate, Biden stumbled over his words and sounded raspy, setting off a conversation within the party about replacing him. Since the debate, Sanders has repeatedly pointed to Biden’s accomplishments in office.
“Yes. I know: Mr. Biden is old, is prone to gaffes, walks stiffly and had a disastrous debate with Mr. Trump. But this I also know: A presidential election is not an entertainment contest. It does not begin or end with a 90-minute debate,” he wrote.
Biden has worked to address concerns that he is too old to be president, acknowledging that he had “a bad night.” He has spoken at rallies, given live interviews and held a press conference on Thursday after the NATO conference. However, these moves have not been enough for some Democrats. Over the week, even after Biden’s interview with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos and the Thursday press conference, more Democrats have called for Biden to stand down.
In his column, Sanders called out “the corporate media” for focusing on the debate and Democrats for joining “the circular firing squad.”
“For over two weeks now, the corporate media has obsessively focused on the June presidential debate and the cognitive capabilities of a man who has, perhaps, the most difficult and stressful job in the world,” he wrote. “The media has frantically searched for every living human being who no longer supports the president or any neurologist who wants to appear on TV. Unfortunately, too many Democrats have joined that circular firing squad.”
Sanders acknowledged that some Democrats are “nervous” about “having to explain the president’s gaffes and misspeaking names.”
But, he noted that, unlike Republicans, “they do not have to explain away a candidate who now has 34 felony convictions and faces charges that could lead to dozens of additional convictions, who has been hit with a $5 million judgment after he was found liable in a sexual abuse case, who has been involved in more than 4,000 lawsuits, who has repeatedly gone bankrupt and who has told thousands of documented lies and falsehoods.”
Over the last two weeks, Sanders has repeatedly stood by Biden and called on him and other Democrats to “focus on the issues,” while criticizing the media for turning the presidential race into a “beauty contest.”
He repeated that argument in the op-ed.
“This election offers a stark choice on issue after issue. If Mr. Biden and his supporters focus on these issues — and refuse to be divided and distracted — the president will rally working families to his side in the industrial Midwest swing states and elsewhere and win the November election,” he wrote.
In his column, Sanders also pointed out to fellow Democrats that he has “strong disagreements” with Biden, but that he has been “the most effective president in the modern history in our country,” calling on Democrats to “learn a lesson from the progressive and centrist forces in France who, despite profound political differences, came together this week to soundly defeat right-wing extremism.”