Major Democratic donors are firm that President Joe Biden should step aside as the party’s presidential nominee after his poor debate performance against former President Donald Trump. While Biden’s family members and most avid supporters are pitching that the president just had a bad night in Atlanta, Georgia, on Thursday, Politico reported that many Democrats are concerned about the 81-year-old chief executive’s fitness going forward.
A survey from Suffolk University/USA Today released on Monday revealed that nearly one-third of voters are now more inclined to support Trump after the first presidential debate. Additionally, most respondents believe that Democrats should consider replacing Biden as their nominee.
“For Biden’s own good and the good of the country, he should step aside immediately,” major Democrat donor and former hedge fund manager Whitney Tilson told DailyMail.com. “The fact that it has now been three days and Biden has done nothing to reassure us confirms my worst fears.” After Biden’s surrogates claimed that he did okay during the debate and that it did not change anyone’s mind, Tilson responded: “They’re p***ing on our legs and telling us it’s raining. It’s insulting. How stupid do they think we are?”
Reuters reported that Biden’s reelection team had difficult phone calls on Sunday and Monday with important campaign funders. The funders questioned whether the chief executive should stay in the presidential race and why they should keep donating after his dismal debate performance. The campaign’s National Finance Committee urgently convened a call on Monday evening with hundreds of top Democrat donors and fundraisers for Biden’s campaign to quell panic, as reported by multiple sources familiar with the call, Newsmax reported.
The outlet added:
The New York Times reported Saturday that a group of Silicon Valley megadonors were calling, texting, and emailing one another about a situation they described as a possible catastrophe. CNN reported Sunday that Biden supporters and donors are divided into three groups: 1. Biden should step aside. 2. More time should be taken to examine post-debate poll data. 3. Stick with Biden as the nominee.
“The smartest thing is to think through how you [as influential outsiders] operate, assuming no change,” Democrat fundraiser and strategist Dmitri Mehlhorn said, CNN reported. “And if there’s no change, if Biden wants to remain president, then any kind of a pressure campaign is just a waste of time and energy and effort and money.”
Anonymous sources reportedly close to President Biden have allegedly witnessed “15 or 20 occasions in the last year and a half” similar to what the country saw at last week’s presidential debate, when he appeared vacant, unable to enunciate his words, and confused.
“These are people, several of them who are very close to President Biden who loved him, have supported him and among them are some people who would raise a lot of money for him. And they are adamant that what we saw the other night, the Joe Biden we saw, is not a one-off, that there have been 15, 20 occasions in the last year and a half when the president has appeared somewhat as he did in that horror show that we witnessed,” CNN’s Carl Bernstein told Anderson Cooper Monday night, referring to the debate.
“And what’s so significant is the people that this is coming from, and also how many people around the president are aware of such incidents, including some reporters incidentally who have witnessed some of them,” said the famed reporter, whose claim to fame was helping expose then-President Richard Nixon and the Watergate scandal as a cub reporter for the Washington Post.
Referencing Biden’s gaslighting address to the nation in response to the Supreme Court immunity ruling involving the Trump legal cases Monday, Bernstein added, “But here we see tonight, that, as these people say, President Biden at his absolute best, and yet these people who have supported him, loved him, campaigned for him, see him often, say that in the last six months particularly there has been a marked incidence of cognitive decline and physical infirmity.”
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