Biden advocates in the liberal media turn on president and 'weep' following Trump debate: 'I've seen enough'
Scores of staunch Biden allies in the liberal media are turning against President Biden following his widely panned debate performance that had pundits and Democrats calling for him to halt his re-election campaign and pass the baton.
Shortly after the debate, MSNBC's Joy Reid suggested that the president failed at his job of "settling" the Democratic Party and assuaging their concerns about his ability to win the 2024 election.
"Joe Biden's job was to reassure them tonight," Reid said. "His job was to calm his party, to make them feel that yes, I can do this. I have four more years in me. I have the ability and the stamina and the strength to do four more years. He did not do that. He did the opposite of that. He made them more panicked."
Reid also admitted that her phone did not stop buzzing throughout the debate as political operatives, campaign operatives and Democrats were approaching a state of panic.
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"[Biden] is the real working-class White guy that's actually Donald Trump's base, so he knows how to talk to them. He believes that he is the only person that can do it. The problem is, after tonight, his party doesn't believe that," she later said.
"Morning Joe" co-host Joe Scarborough, who recently lambasted a Wall Street Journal article that suggested Biden's mental acuity was "slipping," declared his "love" for the president on Friday but admitted his debate performance calls into question whether he should run for re-election.
"If he were CEO and he turned in a performance like that, would any corporation in America, any Fortune 500 corporation in America, keep him on as CEO?" the host said.
Later, Scarborough said Biden "tragically did not rise to the occasion last night."
Frequent "Morning Joe" guest Donny Deutsch gave a similar take on Biden during the segment.
"If the truth be told, I do not believe that Joe Biden, a great man, a hero — he's 10 times the man Donald Trump is — I don't believe he's our best choice at this point," he said.
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NBC News' Chuck Todd declared that Biden looked like the "caricature" conservatives have painted of him, specifically over his mental acuity. The debate came after a flood of liberal anger toward a Wall Street Journal report earlier this month that raised questions about the president's viability.
"And there were no clips tonight, right? You saw it before your eyes," Todd said.
The reaction to Biden's performance was just as dire over on CNN.
CNN analysts discussed growing panic surrounding Biden in the immediate aftermath of the 90-minute face-off with Trump.
CNN political commentator and former Obama adviser Van Jones seemed close to tears during the roundtable discussion after the debate.
"I just want to speak for my heart. I love that guy. He's a good man. He loves his country. He's doing the best that he can, but he had a test to meet tonight to restore confidence of the country and of the base. And he failed to do that. And I think there's a lot of people who are going to want to see him consider taking a different course now," he said.
He continued, "We're still far from our convention, and there is time for this party to figure out a different way forward if he will allow us to do that. But that was not what we needed from Joe Biden, and it's personally painful for a lot of people. It's not just panic, it's pain, of what we saw tonight."
Post-debate, Biden biographer and CNN contributor Evan Osnos said that many Americans who may not follow politics closely were "shocked" by Biden's performance.
"I don't think there's any other way to put it. This was clearly a person who was diminished from where he was on the debate stage four years ago," he said.
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Vice President Kamala Harris clashed with CNN's Anderson Cooper Thursday night when the network host told her that "some within your own party" thought Biden should potentially step aside.
As Harris defended Biden as strong on "policy and performance," Cooper, who whispered that his presidency was a "new beginning" in 2021 when he was inaugurated, interrupted to say it was highly disappointing to his supporters.
"Democratic lawmakers watching the debate were worried about the performance. One said it was a disaster and another called it a trainwreck. Those are Democrats especially worried that Biden did not punch back on Trump's lies," he said.
Cooper later suggested that Biden was a "very different person" on stage four years ago versus the June 27 debate.
"I got the point that you're making about a one-and-a-half-hour debate tonight," Harris shot back. "I'm talking about three and a half years of performance in work that has been historic."
University of Virginia Center for Politics Director Larry Sabato, a staunch Biden backer, said his showing was abysmal.
"It gives me no joy to say this, but President Biden's performance was the worst by a major party nominee for president in that entire time period," he said.
The longtime Biden supporter said that in addition to Democrats who are "privately calling for a replacement," the current president has lost the confidence of many rank-and-file citizens.
"The Biden team has a lot of repair work to do," Sabato said.
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On ABC's "The View," co-host Sunny Hostin, a strong Biden supporter, told the panel, "Most of us are mourning."
"It was really hard to watch and it kind of pains me to say this today, but I think President Biden needs to step down and be replaced," co-host Sara Haines chimed in.
"If we want to defeat Donald Trump in November, I absolutely think that," she continued. "And I think Biden's team saw it coming. I think that's why they pushed for an earlier debate, so they'd have time to change course if needed."
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Co-host Alyssa Farah Griffin, who worked for the Trump administration but has since emerged as an outspoken critic of her former boss, said she was in "shock" watching the debate.
"I've had concerns for a couple of years about Biden's age. It was stunningly worse than I expected, the performance," Griffin said.
Hostin conceded Biden "lost that debate."
"Maybe he needs to go," she said.
Liberal columnist Thomas Friedman, a close friend of the president's, wrote in The New York Times that the debate was one of the most "heartbreaking" events he has witnessed in American politics.
"Joe Biden, a good man and a good president, has no business running for re-election," Friedman wrote.
Friedman said that the debate between Biden and former President Trump made him "weep."
"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," he added.
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The New York Times was plastered with headlines following the debate that echoed the sentiment laid out by Friedman.
"Biden Cannot Go on Like This," Frank Bruni headlined a Times opinion piece.
"President Biden, I've Seen Enough," Times columnist Nicholas Kristof's piece was titled.
"I wish Biden would reflect on this debate performance and then announce his decision to withdraw from the race, throwing the choice of Democratic nominee to the convention," Kristof added on X.
Headlines across the internet from prominent media networks openly called for Biden to withdraw from the presidential race and highlighted extreme discontent among voters and Democratic leaders.
Drudge Report, a U.S.-based news aggregation website highly critical of Trump, went full tilt with the narrative that Biden must step aside shortly after the debate.
"Operation: Replace Biden Dems Scramble With 130 Days to Go! Debate Catastrophe," a massive banner on the Drudge Report website read.
Politico ran with another sour headline, "Democrats really have no way to spin this. We break down Biden's disastrous debate."
Social media was similarly inundated with cataclysmic reactions from major anti-Trump figures and Biden defenders in the media.
"Biden will be a one-term president," Lincoln Project co-founder Steve Schmidt declared. "He still has the chance to watch a Democrat be inaugurated."
Fox News' David Rutz, Gabriel Hays, Brian Flood, Joseph A. Wulfsohn and Lindsay Kornick contributed to this report.