The ‘Replace Biden’ Talk Isn’t Going Away After Debate Disaster: Live Updates

The Tribune’s editorial board says that the decision is his alone to make, and now it should be an obvious one:

Biden, if we’ve not made that clear, should announce that he will be a single-term president who now has seen the light when it comes to his own capabilities in the face of the singular demands of being the president of the United States. He can do so with honor, but he is the only person who can do so. Certainly, his family can help. But, again, he is the only one.

The paradox here is that the limitations of age that Biden now faces likely are what’s also preventing him from making that choice. It’s hard for any of us to leave the stage, especially one we love, and it takes courage and a level of self-awareness that becomes more elusive as we fight ageism in the world, the ruthless ambitions of youthful competitors, the devaluing of our experience and hard-fought wisdom.

But, President Biden, jobs rarely love you back. There is life thereafter. And, in this case, it has to be done. As we all saw.

The Journal Constitution’s board deployed the first American president’s wave-off in their argument:

There is precedent for a president, duly elected by the American people, to step aside gracefully in the national interest. Weary from constant attacks from his opponents, and eager to avoid the perception of American dictatorship, George Washington, with assistance from Alexander Hamilton and James Madison, drafted what stands as one of the most important documents in our nation’s history. Washington, who decided not to seek a third term, never actually delivered what has come to be known as his farewell address; it was drafted in September 1796 and first published in newspapers around the country two months later.

Never one to tell a lie, our first president, then 64 years old, acknowledged the time had come to step aside. “Every day the increasing weight of years admonishes me more and more that the shade of retirement is as necessary to me as it will be welcome,” Washington wrote.

The shade of retirement is now necessary for President Biden.

The Philadelphia Inquirer’s editorial board, meanwhile, is up with an op-ed calling for Trump, not Biden, to bow out of the race for the good of the country — arguing that “the debate about the debate is misplaced. The only person who should withdraw from the race is Trump.”

It’s safe to say that neither candidate is at all likely to take any of these newspapers’ advice.

The former Obama administration big-shot offered a “reality check” via X post:

@JoeBiden is the nominee of the Democratic Party, nominated by voters in primaries across the country. Unless the @POTUS

, himself, decides to quit–which he won’t–that issue is settled. The discussion that is going on now was timely a year ago, when few wanted to have it. It’s largely irrelevant today.

At the Atlantic, Brian Klaas notes that the post-debate debate highlights a critical difference between the Democratic Party and the Trump-worshipping GOP:

[T]he Democratic freak-out over Joe Biden is a sign of a healthy political party. Individual leaders—no matter how effective, decent, or well-intentioned—are not sacred cows, to be valued above the national interest. Democrats view Biden the way that normal political parties view their leaders: as a vessel to achieve policy goals that will improve the lives of citizens. Nothing more, nothing less. This is why you don’t see Priuses adorned with Biden flags or bumper stickers depicting him riding a giant eagle. It’s embarrassing in a rational political party to fuse your identity with a man rather than his message. Republicans long ago jettisoned that shame.

For Politico Magazine, body language expert Joe Navarro writes that Biden was a split screen disaster, as well:

I have watched Biden since the early ’90s, and this is the most stoic I have ever seen him. He was still as a statue at times, especially in the first 40 minutes or so. His lack of movement was especially striking next to Trump, who drew the viewer’s eye with dynamic hand motions and aggressive finger pointing that emphasized his arguments, making him appear much more energetic. I often say that body language speaks volumes, but Biden’s volume was full of blank pages. Sure, it might be because he wanted to be respectful and listen intently. But it could also be because, as we age, our gestures become more economical. Biden’s nonverbal communication did nothing to counter the narrative that his age is catching up to him.

Per their new op-ed:

The clearest path for Democrats to defeat a candidate defined by his lies is to deal truthfully with the American public: acknowledge that Mr. Biden can’t continue his race, and create a process to select someone more capable to stand in his place to defeat Mr. Trump in November.

It is the best chance to protect the soul of the nation — the cause that drew Mr. Biden to run for the presidency in 2019 — from the malign warping of Mr. Trump. And it is the best service that Mr. Biden can provide to a country that he has nobly served for so long.

The publication’s opinion section was packed with similar views on Friday.

But it could all have the opposite effect:

“Nothing to see here” is not a great mitigation strategy:

Barack Obama spoke out in support of Biden on Friday, dismissing his “bad debate night”:

Bill Clinton got behind Biden, too:

Not as many as expected, and there’s no way of knowing how many of the viewers were persuadable voters.

Gabriel Debenedetti reports on how Biden World is weathering the unprecedented post-debate storm:

For months now, Biden’s improbably calm advisers have argued that once disengaged voters tune in and realize they are facing Trump’s return, the president’s numbers would improve and the electoral picture would brighten. Once it eventually crystalized in voters’ minds, the binary would change the dynamic and all their naysayers would prove to be unsophisticated bedwetters. This may still prove true, but it didn’t happen when Trump became his party’s nominee or even when he was convicted of 34 felony counts.

If this is still the hope — and it is, according to the team players dotting the top of the party and the White House — the number of opportunities to showcase the contrast between old and responsible and basically insane is now diminishing. This summer’s conventions may help, especially if Trump is incarcerated before his. But there is little promise that a second debate, currently scheduled for September, would necessarily do any good. The close Biden ally who called me after the debate, apparently numb, said, “It’s narcissistic to think time is his friend.” After the debate, there can be no doubt that the 81-year-old Biden of 2024 is not the same as the one who beat Trump in 2020.

It’s worth remembering that it’s not exactly surprising we’ve reached this moment. Two years ago, when I asked another longtime adviser how Biden was thinking about whether to run again, that person reminded me that he had basically been circling the presidency for half a century so is extremely unlikely to abandon it — and his political relevance — now: “It’s been his life. It’s like a shark that keeps swimming. It’s how he stays alive.”

Read the rest of Gabe’s report here.

Ryu Spaeth shares his experience watching the event with his 9-year-old:

There was a moment where she was watching these two men on screen that simply felt wrong, for lack of a better word. There was the unmediated exposure to Trump, of course, which always feels like playing with some radioactive substance. But it was also dismaying to see a young person witness Biden falter in such humiliating fashion, as if she were unwittingly watching a form of abuse. How could these two senile creatures squabbling about golf be our only options? How could the Democrats have let this happen? I kept telling her, “It’s not supposed to be like this,” but this is how it is. And worse — for people like us, anyway, who have been led to believe we are connected in some deep and important way to the Democrats — this is who we are.

Read the rest of Ryu’s post here.

Almost immediately after the debate was over, Biden appeared at a campaign event and sounded … fine?

And Biden was even more spry and spirited at his rally in North Carolina on Friday afternoon:

As I explain in a look at the hard decision that now awaits Biden:

Biden himself could withdraw as a candidate, instantly removing any legal obstacles to the selection of a different nominee (state laws binding delegates generally release them when their candidate’s tent folds) and mitigating the political damage significantly. And even as Democratic elected officials and party leaders publicly renew their vows of support for Biden, as they must, you have to figure private discussions are underway to determine if this proud and sometimes stubborn man will indeed step aside. He surely understands that he’s now given vivid life to widespread fears that he’s too old for another term in the White House. Reversing that impression will be very difficult, particularly since Trump is unlikely to give him a chance to redeem himself in a second debate. What was already a tough uphill slog of a campaign for reelection has now become a steep and perilous climb in which the incumbent, not his calamitous predecessor, will be the focus of constant malicious scrutiny.

Biden could reset the contest with one clear statement repeating his determination to keep Trump out of the White House and passing the torch to a successor. And, yes, he’d have to name a successor, lest the Chicago convention become a riotous playground for political egos, making a general-election campaign impossible to plan, finance, and execute. Sure, the punditocracy will clamor for the spectacle of an “open convention,” but it would represent political malpractice of the highest order. If he does “step aside,” Biden must help his vice-president “step up” with the backing of a united party. Any other option at this late date would smack of desperation and would divide Democrats even more bitterly than an effort to “dump” the incumbent.

Read the rest of the post here.

The swings against Biden have been brutal, but as I write in a new post, there are lots of caveats:

Political-betting markets are really not so different from snap polls, except for the prospect of winning or losing big, and they could revert to the mean after the shock of Thursday’s debate wears off (or some other political catastrophe changes the race).

Arguably, what makes each betting contract a bit more substantial than a snap poll is that the views reflect enough of a conviction to put money on the line. There’s no telling if someone answering a poll will change her mind or not show up to vote, while bettors are probably pretty engaged with an election, and the chances of their voting increases their odds of winning. But, by their very nature, gambling markets might be a pretty bad way to gauge an election’s outcome, especially one that’s still four months out. In Las Vegas, most people lose against the house. In a democracy, it’s the opposite — most people, or at least most voters, win.

And a new web video out from the Trump campaign is as simple as it is brutal:

For many members of the Republican Party, Biden’s lackluster debate performance was seen as a well-timed gift. On Friday, Senate candidates in key swing states like Pennsylvania and Ohio sought to highlight their Democratic rivals’ alignment with the president in the wake of his halting on-stage presentation.

Dave McCormick, who is challenging Pennsylvania Senator Bob Casey, shared a clip of Casey defending Biden’s abilities on multiple occasions. “Bob Casey has said over and over that his “close friend” Joe Biden, with whom he votes 98% of the time, is fit to be president. What we all saw last night proves Casey is lying,” he said on X.

Montana Senator Jon Tester and Ohio’s Sherrod Brown faced similar criticisms from their respective opponents, Tim Sheehy and Bernie Moreno:

The post-debate freakout among Democrats isn’t amounting to anything substantive yet. As The Wall Street Journal reports, the angst is so far just angst, since no major Democrats have echoed the concerns:

Democratic donors and strategists said they were shocked by Biden’s showing. They acknowledged, however, that the chances of the president withdrawing remained slim. There was little consensus on a plan forward, they said. Some tried to game out scenarios that could lead to a change at the top of the ticket, like high-ranking party officials, including Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, publicly calling for Biden to step aside. But no such calls came as of Friday. Some Biden allies said they felt a sense of resignation, knowing only a handful of people close to the president—including his family and his former boss, President Barack Obama—had the power to do anything. …

Two Democrats involved in 2024 races who were also stunned by Biden’s performance said they nonetheless expect the panic among Democrats to fade over the next couple of weeks. They predicted that polling numbers for Biden and down-ballot Democrats will suffer over the summer, but return to where they are now heading into the fall.

And he now wants Biden to drop out, per his response column at the New York Times:

I watched the Biden-Trump debate alone in a Lisbon hotel room, and it made me weep. I cannot remember a more heartbreaking moment in American presidential campaign politics in my lifetime, precisely because of what it revealed: Joe Biden, a good man and a good president, has no business running for re-election. And Donald Trump, a malicious man and a petty president, has learned nothing and forgotten nothing. He is the same fire hose of lies he always was, obsessed with his grievances — nowhere close to what it will take for America to lead in the 21st century.

The Biden family and political team must gather quickly and have the hardest of conversations with the president, a conversation of love and clarity and resolve. To give America the greatest shot possible of deterring the Trump threat in November, the president has to come forward and declare that he will not be running for re-election and is releasing all of his delegates for the Democratic National Convention.

That’s the focus of Franklin Foer’s response to the debate debacle in The Atlantic today:

When I talk with aides on the inside, they never question Biden’s governing capacity. Perhaps this is their own wishful thinking. Perhaps they are better able to see how the benefits of experience overwhelm his inability to recall a name. But it’s also the product of a delusion among the Democratic elite about what constitutes effective leadership. Governing competently is different from campaigning competently. The ability to think strategically about China, or to negotiate a complicated piece of bipartisan legislation, is not the limit of politics. It’s not enough to deliver technocratic accomplishments or to prudently manage a chaotic global scene—a politician must also connect with the voters, and convince them that they’re in good hands. And the Biden presidency has always required explaining away the fact that the public wasn’t buying what he was selling, even when the goods seemed particularly attractive.

So here we are, at a very late hour, when changing the nominee would be hard for Democrats, but remains a plausible option. But if there are problems with the Democratic establishment, at least it’s still an establishment, with the capacity to impose its will.

Not surprisingly, the influential former Speaker isn’t throwing in her Biden towel:

Senior Democratic officials made it clear Friday morning that they were still behind the president. When asked by reporters if Biden should step down, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said no. Pennsylvania governor Josh Shapiro and Michigan governor Gretchen Whitmer, whose names have been floated as possible presidential candidates down the line, also expressed support for Biden following the debate, as did California governor Gavin Newsom (who was in the Atlanta spin room on Thursday night for the president’s campaign).

Some prominent Democrats seemed more reluctant to comment on Biden’s performance. The New York Times reports that former Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Congressman Jim Clyburn avoided questions the morning after the debate, rushing past reporters in the U.S. Capitol.

On Friday morning, Senator John Fetterman said he has no plans to join the chorus of voices calling for Biden to step down, alluding to his own personal experience with a debate disaster:

As our own Ed Kilgore explains, yes, they can, but they almost certainly won’t:

From a political perspective, the idea that Biden might be dumped from the ticket is extremely far-fetched. But technically it is possible, though increasingly complicated, right up to Election Day.

When it comes to changing horses in the middle of a presidential race, Democrats differ from Republicans in one fundamental respect: While GOP rules bind delegates to the candidates who win primaries or caucuses, Democrats have a moral rather than a legal obligation to remain faithful to their candidate. Fourteen states have laws that seek to bind delegates to the winning candidate, but it’s reasonably clear that party rules supersede such laws when they are in conflict. And in most states, delegates are released from their obligations if a candidate withdraws from the race.

Read the rest of Ed’s explanation here.