Joe's gotta go: Top Democrats pressure Biden to drop out after the debate debacle

The protection sphere that Democrat leaders formed around President Biden after the debate is starting to show cracks as doubts overtake elected officials and even himself.

The first debate of the 2024 election was a disaster for the Biden campaign. Panic quickly spread among Democrats and the media as they grasped how old the President looked.

Elected Democratic officials and aides anonymously shared their concerns with the media immediately after the debate. The doubts over the President's candidacy continued through the weekend.

Still, all Democratic leaders, donors, and close allies publicly closed ranks around the President. The media kept asking questions, but top officials and the Biden family doubled down on their efforts to keep him on the ticket.

Despite the efforts, the President lost the confidence of strong liberal voices in the media, including former top Democratic officials. Voices like Van Jones on CNN and Rachel Maddow on MSNBC questioned his capacity.

One of the most poignant messages came the morning after the debate: Joe Scarborough (MSNBC) said he should consider a different candidate. Scarborough is one of the media voices President Biden trusts the most.

New York Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman, who is also close to President Biden, asked him to prioritize the country's future over his ambitions in an article that came hours before a piece by the newspaper's editorial board asking for the same.

Then the polls came. CNN placed Biden under Trump by six points, and a survey from a pro-Biden super PAC leaked to the news site Puck showed the President lost about two points.

Elected officials and top Democrats broke ranks by Tuesday, three days after the debate. The hit on the President's image became more apparent, and the attempts to solve the issue fell short.

According to The New York Times and CNN, more lawmakers and officials started questioning whether the President's poor debate performance was just a bump or part of a larger pattern.

On Tuesday, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said it was “a legitimate question to say, ‘Is this an episode or is this a condition?’” in a quote collected by the NY Times.

That same morning, James Clyburn, a North Carolina Representative whose endorsement was vital for President Biden in 2020, suggested he would back Kamala Harris if Biden were to step out.

Then, by noon, all of Biden's campaign fears became a reality when Texas Representative Lloyd Doggett publicly asked the President to withdraw from the race.

"Under very different circumstances, he made the painful decision to withdraw. President Biden should do the same," Doggett said in a statement collected by CNN.

According to the broadcaster, Democratic governors have also privately expressed their concerns. President Biden decided to have a meeting with them and top lawmakers on Wednesday to settle the waters.

However, that same day, one weekend and half a frantic week after the debate, President Biden admitted to an aide that if he couldn't fix the issue quickly, there was no way out, the NY Times and CNN confirmed.

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