Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, 84, told MSNBC that questions about President Joe Biden‘s age and acuity are fair game after the debate heard ’round the world last Thursday. Pelosi, who retains powerful influence among Democrats, asked of Biden’s botched performance: “Is this an episode or is this a condition?”
The Congresswoman said the question was fair to ask of the Republican candidate, Donald Trump, too.
Becoming the first elected Dem to publicly call for Biden to step down from the ticket, 77-year-old Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-TX) said unequivocally that Biden should pass the torch, thanking the President for having “delivered us from Donald Trump in 2020” and cautioning him now that “he must not deliver us to Trump in 2024.”
Among those also questioning Biden’s viability is Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), who has been supportive of the President if not always happy with the campaign.
“I think like a lot of people I was pretty horrified by the debate,” said Whitehouse, who wants assurance — as do voters — that this is “not just the way [Biden] is these days.”
(The campaign, and many of Biden’s defenders, have characterized his debate as simply a “bad night.”)
Whitehouse told WPRI’s Ted Nesi: “I think people want to make sure that this is a campaign that’s ready to go and win, that the president and his team are being candid with us about his condition—that this was a real anomaly and not just the way he is these days.”
Whitehouse pushed the door open to a post-Biden world, giving three things the campaign needs to do — with only one of them being the case for Biden.
First — and by implication most important — Whitehouse said the campaign must make the case against Donald Trump. Then Whitehouse asserted that the campaign must make, in equal parts, the case “for President Biden” and for “the goals” the Democratic Party wants to deliver on.
Those Democratic goals are not, as Whitehouse’s message makes clear, Biden-dependent.
“I’ve been critical of the campaign all along,” Whitehouse said, outlining the three imperatives at present. “The upside is that this could be the jolt that they need to make a more compelling case against Donald Trump and for President Biden and the goals Democrats want to achieve.”