Democrats try to thread needle in discussing Biden’s 2024 campaign, withdrawal
Sign up now: Get ST's newsletters delivered to your inbox
Long-time Biden allies and campaign surrogates have since backtracked on their fervent support for the former president.
PHOTO: REUTERS
Maya C. Miller
Follow topic:
WASHINGTON – Hours before the announcement that former US president Joe Biden had been diagnosed with prostate cancer,
Talk show hosts pressed the lawmakers for reactions to the revelations, including new audio of interviews between Mr Biden and Special Counsel Robert Hur in which the former president spoke haltingly and struggled to remember major dates.
The hosts questioned them on whether the party should have stepped in sooner to persuade Mr Biden to drop his 2024 re-election campaign and if the 82-year-old was fit to finish his term.
Long-time Biden allies and campaign surrogates, such as Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut and Representative Ro Khanna of California, have since backtracked on their fervent support for the former president and say that in hindsight, the party should have listened to voters sooner and called for him to step aside.
But they stopped short of accusing Mr Biden’s aides of orchestrating a “cover-up”.
Senator Tim Kaine of Virginia defended Mr Biden when asked if the former president’s decision to run for re-election was a good idea.
The senator said he knew the version of Mr Biden who delivered the 2024 State of the Union address – which he described as a strong performance – and was surprised to see his faltering debate performance in June that year.
“Virginians are talking to me about, ‘Can you get rid of the Trump economic chaos? Can you lift tariffs? Can you protect Medicaid and social security?’” Mr Kaine said.
“They’re not asking me to rethink what president Biden or his team did in 2024.”
The strongest defence came from Representative James Clyburn of South Carolina, an influential lawmaker who played a major role in shoring up support for Mr Biden among black voters.
He reiterated on CNN’s State Of The Union with Mr Jake Tapper that he “never saw anything that allowed me to think that Mr Joe Biden was not able to do the job”.
When pressed further, Mr Clyburn clarified that while Mr Biden’s debate performance was concerning, he questioned whether it was truly a sign of deeper cognitive issues or simply a one-off fumble.
“The question is: Is this a condition, or is this an incident?” Mr Clyburn said. “I have had incidents when I was looking for my glasses and had them on.” NYTIMES
