VOA: Democrats exclude the possibility of replacing President Biden

2024-06-30 22:01:00, Kosova & Bota CNA

VOA: Democrats exclude the possibility of replacing President Biden

Joe Biden, US President

Top Democratic leaders on Sunday ruled out replacing President Joe Biden in the race for the White House after a poor showing in the debate, while urging Democrats to focus on the fallout from Republican Donald Trump's victory. Trump.

After days of exchanging accusations over Mr. Biden's performance and the outcome of the November election, Democratic leaders firmly pushed back against calls for their party to select a younger candidate to run in the presidential race.

The 81-year-old president, Joe Biden, spent Sunday at the presidential resort "Camp David" with family members, where his political future may have been one of the topics of conversation.

As calls continue for Mr. Biden to withdraw from the race, a post-debate poll by the CBS television network shows an increase from 36% in February to 46% now of Democrats who believe Mr. Biden should not run for president.

"Unfortunately, the truth is that Biden must withdraw from the race, for the good of the country he has served so admirably for half a century," the Atlanta Journal-Constitution wrote in its editorial on Sunday. stressing his retirement as necessary.

"Absolutely not," said Senator Raphael Warnock of Georgia, who is seen as one of the possible Democrats to replace Mr. Biden.

"Weak debates happen," he said on NBC's "Meet the Press" television show. "The question is, when has Donald Trump worked for anyone but himself and people like him? I'm with Joe Biden and it's our job to make sure he wins in November."

House Democratic Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, who could become speaker next year if his party secures a majority in November, acknowledged President Biden's poor showing in the first debate with Republican nominee Donald Trump.

"I believe that a setback is nothing more than an impetus for a strong comeback," he told the MSNBC network. "So the moment we're in right now is a turning point, and it will require our support to articulate a forward-looking message about why the Democratic platform is best equipped to address the challenges facing the American people."

Another senior House Democrat, James Clyburn, agrees. "He should stay in this race and he should demonstrate this through his ability to lead the country," he told CNN.

Republicans sharply criticized Democrats' claims that poor performance is something that happens.

"The idea that Biden had a bad night is beside the point. He has had a problematic presidency and a disastrous debate," Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican from South Carolina, told CNN.

But during the presidential debate, candidate Trump unleashed a barrage of criticisms, many of them long-repeated falsehoods, including claims of a crime wave by immigrants, that Democrats support infanticide, and that he actually won the 2020 elections./VOA