David Axelrod Says Biden ‘Not Winning This Race’ As Calls to Drop Out Grow
Former Obama White House adviser David Axelrod claimed President Joe Biden does not understand he is “not winning this race” against former President Donald Trump.
Axelrod, a longtime Democratic strategist, has become critical of Biden in the wake of the president’s poor performance at CNN’s debate last week. Biden struggled at times to give coherent answers to the moderators and had a raspy voice from a cold.
Democratic pundits and strategists have called on Biden to resign from the November race and allow Vice President Kamala Harris to take his desired spot as the party’s nominee. Axelrod has joined the long list of Democrats calling on Biden needs to step aside, adding that he is “dangerously out of touch.”
During an interview on CNN’s Inside Politics, Axelrod told anchor Pamela Brown that Biden cannot defeat “Father Time,” adding that staying in the race would damage his political legacy.
BROWN: So right after President Biden’s interview aired Friday, you posted on X that he is dangerously out of touch. Why do you say that?
AXELROD: Well, because, listening to the interview, he seemed to deny where he is in the race. He seems not to grasp what is the big concern that people have, you know, let me just say about the president, Pam, that his whole life he has overcome tremendous loss and tremendous odds. I mean, you know, his personal loss is well known, extraordinary and horrible. And he’s fought his way back from that. He’s fought his way back from political defeats and against the odds. And so his psyche is that he can beat anybody and any long odds. What he can’t beat is Father Time. And that’s really the concern here. It’s not about his record. Every time he’s asked about whether he can do the job until he’s closer to 90 than 80, he says, well, look at what I did the last four years. That’s just not the way it works. Donald Trump is a, almost unprecedentedly a flawed candidate in so many ways and represents, I do believe, as the president says, a real danger, to democracy. But, the one person that no one can outrun is Father Time. You know, Tom Brady won a Super Bowl three years ago, and he’s out of football. Okay, why, doesn’t doesn’t detract from his greatness or what he’s done. It’s just there are certain immutable facts of life. And those were painfully obvious on that debate stage. And the president just doesn’t seem to come to grips with it. He’s not winning this race. He’s more likely if you just look at the data and talk to people around the country, political people around the country, it’s more likely that he’ll, lose by a landslide than win narrowly this race. And if the stakes are as large as he says and I believe they are, then he really needs to consider what his what the right thing to do here is.
Watch the clip above via CNN.
