The president of United States, Joe Bidenspoke in the last hours after the debate that took place on Thursday night and in which he was face to face with Donald TrumpThe US president said he intends to defeat the Republican and confirmed that he will continue in the presidential race, amid rumors that there could be a replacement. In fact, a harsh editorial by The New York Times asked the president to withdraw from these new elections.
“I know I’m not a young man, to state the obvious,” said one enthusiastic Biden at a rally a day after the head-to-head confrontation with his Republican rival, which was widely seen as a defeat for the 81-year-old president.
“I don’t walk as easily as I used to, I don’t speak as well as I used to, I don’t debate as well as I used to,” he said, according to the agency. Argentinian Newsas the crowd chanted “four more years.”
“I wouldn’t run again if I didn’t believe with all my heart and soul that I could do this job. There’s too much at stake,” he said Biden.
The verbal stumbles of Biden and occasionally meandering answers in the debate raised voter concerns that he might be unfit to serve another four-year term and led some of his fellow Democrats to wonder whether they might replace him as their candidate for the US elections on 5 November.
Campaign spokesman Michael Tyler said no discussions were taking place about that possibility. “We’d rather have a bad night than a candidate with a bad vision of where he wants to take the country,” he told reporters aboard Air Force One. The campaign held an “all-hands-on-deck” meeting Friday afternoon to reassure staffers that Biden would not withdraw from the race, according to two people familiar with the meeting.
Hakeem Jeffries, the Democratic leader in the US House of Representatives, avoided answering directly when asked if he still had faith in Biden’s candidacy. “I support the ticket. I support the Democratic majority in the Senate. We’re going to do everything we can to take back the House of Representatives in November. Thank you all,” he told reporters. Some other Democrats also demurred when asked if Biden should remain in the race.
“That’s the president’s decision,” Democratic Sen. Jack Reed told a local television station in Rhode Island. But several of the party’s top figures, including former Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, said they would stick with Biden.
“Bad debate nights happen. Believe me, I know. But this election is still a choice between someone who has fought for ordinary people his entire life and someone who only cares about himself,” wrote former Democratic President Barack Obama in X.
The New York Times editorial board, which endorsed Biden in 2020, asked him to withdraw from the race to give the Democratic Party a better chance of beating Trump by choosing another candidate. “The greatest public service Mr. Biden can perform now is to announce that he will not continue to run for re-election,” the editorial said.
