Big names call on Biden to end reelection campaign

Rep. Mike Quigley (D-IL)In an interview with MSNBC’s Chris Hayes, he argued that Biden should drop out of the race, saying, “The only thing left for Biden to consolidate his legacy and avoid total disaster is to step down and let someone else take over.”

Rep. Seth Moulton (D-Massachusetts)Moulton lamented that he no longer has confidence that Biden can beat former President Donald Trump in the November election, telling Boston-based NPR station WBUR that Biden should “step back and let new leadership rise up.”

Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-Texas): Doggett on Tuesday became the first sitting Democrat to make the case for Biden’s dismissal, explaining that he “hoped the debate would create momentum” but that Biden “failed to effectively defend many of his accomplishments and expose many of Trump’s lies.”

Rep. Raul Grijalva (D-AZ)became the second sitting Democratic member of Congress, following Doggett, to call on Biden to resign, telling The New York Times that Biden has a “responsibility” to step down from the race.

Julian CastroThe former Housing and Urban Development secretary under the Obama administration and a Democratic primary candidate in early 2020 said Biden should “absolutely” step aside from the race and that Vice President Kamala Harris should take over for the Democratic nomination.

Former Congressman Tim Ryan (D-Ohio): Biden’s former rival for the 2020 presidential nomination wrote in a Newsweek magazine op-ed that he believes Harris is the party’s “best path forward” and called her an opportunity for “generational change.”

Wealthy Biden supporter: Billionaires Christy Walton, Michael Novogratz and Reed Hastings, who have previously donated to pro-Biden and anti-Trump groups, have called on Biden to step down, while Mark Cuban has said Democrats should consider whether someone else could run the nomination.

The New York Times Editorial Board: “To serve his country, President Biden should withdraw from the race,” declared a headline from a left-leaning panel the day after the debate, a call echoed by the editorial boards of the Chicago Tribune, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and the Boston Globe.

Thomas Friedman: The Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times columnist, who acknowledged his friendship with Biden and described being reduced to tears while watching the “heartbreaking” debate, wrote that Biden was “unfit to run for reelection” and that Democrats should conduct “a new and open process for finding the Democratic nominee for president.”

Nicholas Kristof: In a column published just hours after the debate ended, New York Times columnist Kristof wrote that Biden’s debate performance “reinforced the narrative” that he is too old to serve as president and urged the president to announce his retirement before the convention and give delegates the opportunity to choose another Democratic candidate, such as Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown or Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo.

Paul Krugman: “The Best President of My Lifetime Needs to Go” was the headline of a petition from a third New York Times columnist, with Krugman acknowledging that “given how much I’ve supported Biden’s policies, some of Biden’s supporters may see this as a betrayal, but I fear we need to acknowledge reality.”

David Remnick: The editors of The New Yorker wrote that Biden appeared to have “slid into a state of onstage indiscretion” and that to remain a candidate “would be not only self-delusional but also a national danger.”

David Ignatius: A Washington Post foreign affairs columnist reiterated a view he expressed in a September column that Biden should not run, writing after the debate that aides and confidants, including his wife, Jill Biden, had insulated Biden and dismissed calls that he should step aside and were “overly protective.”

Mark Leibovich: The Atlantic staff writer and former national correspondent for The New York Times Magazine headlined his Friday column “It’s Time to Go, Joe,” calling the debate a “disaster” and saying Biden “looks and talks old, very, very old in fact.”

Joe Scarborough: He declared, “I love you”[s]Biden, host of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” — a show Biden is said to watch religiously — gently suggested on Friday that the president should drop out of the race, asking the rhetorical question, “If he was a CEO and he performed like this, would any company in America keep him on?”

Chandler West: “It’s time for Joe to go,” West, who served as White House director of photography from January 2021 to May 2022, posted on Instagram, Axios reported. Screenshots from West’s article showed White House officials had been privately saying for months that Biden “is not as strong as he was a few years ago,” and later text messages sent by West to Axios predicted the debate “won’t be the last bad day” for Biden.

James Carville: The longtime Democratic political consultant said the Biden campaign used his name in post-debate fundraising correspondence without his permission and told Politico that Biden “should not be the nominee.” He also told Axios that he thinks Biden will end his campaign before Election Day, paraphrasing economist Herb Stein’s “what can’t be done, can’t be done.”

Andrew Yang: Biden’s former rival for the 2020 Democratic nomination wrote in a blog post on Saturday that he was “wrong” to trust that Biden’s team would prepare him for Thursday’s debate, described Biden as “old and stumbling” when they met in February, and wrote that Biden is “fighting a campaign he cannot win” and is “doing the country wrong” by continuing to run.

Cenk Uygur: Less than 30 minutes into the debate, the host and founder of the left-leaning political podcast The Young Turks, who also ran briefly for the Democratic nomination this year, tweeted that his show will “begin discussing who should replace Biden, because at this point it’s clear that it absolutely has to happen.”