Democrats Are ‘Panicking’ and ‘Reduced to Hoping for Another Public Misstep by Biden,’ Reports NYT

AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin

President Joe Biden may have been able to nudge his fellow Democrats to publicly line up beside him in the past few days, but behind the scenes, the grumbling – and the panic – continues, according to a new report by The New York Times.

Biden has been facing increasing scrutiny since his verbal stumbles during his debate against former President Donald Trump. Recent polling showed 72% of Americans do not believe he has the “mental and cognitive health to be president.” The days following the debate continued to bring more tough headlines for the president, as rumors swirled about internal discontent among Democrats – including several public calls for him to step aside – and worries about him remaining behind in the polls.

Nonetheless, Biden remains adamant that he intends to stay in the race, and said so during a rally in Wisconsin, his interview with ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos that aired last Friday, and a surprise call-in to MSNBC’s Morning Joe Monday morning.

The Times has been an especially scathing voice amidst the media frenzy swirling around the president, expressly calling for Biden to drop out of the race in two columns from the Editorial Board thus far.

Tuesday’s article by congressional correspondent Annie Karni did not buck that trend. Headlined “On Capitol Hill, Democrats Panic About Biden but Do Nothing,” Karni detailed how multiple Democrats had publicly called for the president to swiftly take action “to put to rest the doubts about his candidacy raised by a disastrous debate performance,” including more unscripted events, town halls, and media interviews.

“So far, Mr. Biden has done none of that,” wrote Karni. “And yet, Democrats on Capitol Hill are stifling their doubts and falling in line behind him anyway.”

Doing nothing was “a strategy many of them conceded could be disastrous,” she continued, but the “defiant letter” Biden sent to congressional Democrats, along with his support from Congressional Black Caucus members “vociferously rallying to his side,” seems to have “successfully paralyzed the entire party into a state of uncertainty and inaction.”

Democrats in “vulnerable” districts were “panicking,” wrote Karni, as they were now left with few options besides “hoping” for Biden to get himself into more trouble:

Longtime party loyalists said they were now reduced to hoping for another major public misstep by Mr. Biden, such as a serious stumble at his NATO news conference, to either persuade reticent members of Congress to speak out or to convince the president that he should leave the race on his own.

The stance struck the lone-wolf Democrats who have stuck their necks out to publicly call for Mr. Biden to step aside as preposterous — and even dangerous.

The discrepancy between Democrats’ private views that “Biden himself was the problem” and public comments supporting him staying in the race led Karni to compare them to their MAGA Republican foes: “Their unwillingness to say so was reminiscent of how congressional Republicans behaved during Mr. Trump’s presidency, when they would criticize and mock him privately but profess total fealty in public — or simply avert their gaze from his latest incendiary missive.”