Thomas Friedman: There’ll be ‘complete and utter balagan’ if Democrats try to replace Biden without his support

New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, a close associate of US President Joe Biden, says in an Israeli television interview that there will be a “complete and utter balagan without precedent” if the Democratic party tries to replace the incumbent without his and his family’s support for the process.

Instead, he says that the president “must lead the process of replacing Biden.”

“He will listen to his family and his wife and not to me or party people or whoever,” he tells Channel 12, “but I hope that as a family and a collective they do the one thing that Donald J. Trump and Bibi Netanyahu have refused to do — put their country ahead of their party and their personal interests.”

Friedman also says that Biden and US Vice President Kamala Harris could together call for a mini primary.

Concerns that, at age 81, Biden is not up for the task of leading the country for another four years have risen after his unsteady showing in his debate with former US president Donald Trump last week.

“Donald Trump must not be elected again as president of the United States,” Friedman asserts.

When asked why he has supported the president until now, given his close relationship, Friedman says, “I knew Biden was old and I knew that he would slow down, but I also saw a man who was capable of serving as the president of the United States. That was not the man I saw in the debate.”

In an op-ed titled “President Biden Is My Friend. He Must Bow Out of the Race,” Friedman wrote that Thursday’s presidential debate “made me weep. I cannot remember a more heartbreaking moment in American presidential campaign politics in my lifetime.”

Friedman, who has close ties with Biden’s office, has often publicly conveyed messages from the president that the latter chose not to deliver officially.