Biden's rocky debate leaves donors calling for withdrawal
The echoes of the presidential debate in the US, where Joe Biden and Donald Trump clashed, have not died down. The vast majority of viewers on CNN judged that the Republican candidate won. Democratic donors are unofficially raising the alarm. They believe the incumbent president should withdraw from the race.
2:11 PM EDT, June 28, 2024
Democratic candidate Joe Biden clashed with his Republican rival, Donald Trump, in the first debate before the US presidential elections. The media, including those favorable to the Democratic Party, overwhelmingly favored the incumbent president, who is four years older than the Republican and believed he performed terribly.
Joe Biden, who will turn 82 right after the November elections, was supposed to convince Americans in the debate that he is in good shape to serve the country for another term. But it turned out the opposite.
CNBC points out that Joe Biden spoke hoarsely, quietly, and had pauses in his speech, occasionally losing his train of thought. In a CNN poll, the network that organized the first presidential candidate debate, 67% of observers pointed to Donald Trump as the winner.
Joe Biden's disappointing performance
Leading donors to the Democratic candidate's campaign unofficially expressed immense concern over Joe Biden's performance. "This is terrible. Worse than I thought possible. Everyone I talk to thinks Biden should step down," one of them told CNBC.
"It was a really disappointing debate performance from Joe Biden, I don’t think there’s any other way to slice it," added Kate Bedingfield, former White House communications director in the Biden administration until 2023, in an interview with CNN.
The camp of the incumbent US president argues, however, that Biden has a cold, which was the reason for his poor performance. CNBC points out that the Democratic National Convention will take place in August, where decisions can be made about who the party's candidate for US president will be if the 81-year-old indeed withdraws. The election for the highest office in the United States is scheduled for November 5.
