From the Liveblog of
Friday, June 28, 2024
Biden advisers say he has no plans to step aside after lackluster debate performance
Joe Biden’s advisers tell CNN the US president has no plans to step aside following mounting concerns over last night’s debate performance.
“There’s no basis for that… There’s nothing that voters have indicated that they agree with that,” the adviser told CNN on the possibility that Biden might bow out.
While acknowledging last night’s performance was lackluster, another adviser tells the network that Biden also plans to participate in the second presidential debate in September.
The second adviser says the campaign will highlight what it says were Biden’s strong moments in the debate before moving on. The aide adds that many of Biden’s staff worked for former president Barak Obama, who managed to recover from a poor debate performance against Mitt Romney to win re-election in 2008.
Meanwhile, House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries tells reporters he doesn’t think Biden should step down.
Democratic Sen. John Fetterman tweets, “Chill the f**k out,” adding that he knows firsthand that “a rough debate is not the sum total of a person and their record.”
“I refuse to join the Democratic vultures on Biden’s shoulder after the debate. No one knows more than me that a rough debate is not the sum total of the person and their record,” Fetterman writes.
“Morning-after thermonuclear beat downs from my race from the debate and polling geniuses like 538 predicted l’d lose by 2. And what happened? The only seat to flip and won by a historic margin (+5),” he adds.
