‘He’s Being Trump-Like’: Only Democrat to Beat Biden in a 2024 Primary Savages Him for Staying in Race

(AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

Jason Palmer, a businessman from American Samoa and the only candidate to beat President Joe Biden in a primary this year likened the commander-in-chief to former President Donald Trump for his refusal to drop his reelection bid.

Palmer was among several self-described Democrats who spoke to The Washington Post for a Friday story that asked if Biden’s commitment to being the Democratic Party’s 2024 nominee was “Trumpy” given growing calls among Democrats for him to exit the race.

In the small, Pacific American territory’s March primary, Palmer prevailed against the sitting president with 51 votes to Biden’s 40 votes.

Biden easily won the rest of his party’s primaries and Palmer suspended his campaign for the White House. The former longshot presidential candidate remained out of the headlines until Friday when he told the Post that Biden’s stubbornness in the face of calls among Democrats for him to step aside was selfish and “Trump-like.”

“He’s being Trump-like in that he’s not listening,” Palmer told the Post.

“Donald Trump sometimes gets into a bluster and just says, ‘I’m the only one that could do it.’ And some of the sentences I heard from Joe Biden in the George Stephanopoulos interview sounded like, ‘I’m the only one who can keep NATO together, can protect the free world.’ You know, thinking you’re the only person is not the right way to run for president,” Palmer concluded.

Palmer was referring to an at-times tense interview that aired last week on ABC News in which Biden went back and forth with network anchor George Stephanopoulos about whether he believed he was the right candidate to challenge Trump in November.

After Stephanopoulos asked Biden to respond to people who had questions about his cognitive abilities following his widely criticized debate performance against Trump last month, the president defended himself and his record.

“George. I’m the guy that put NATO together, the future,” Biden said. “No one thought I could expand it. I’m the guy that shut Putin down. No one thought could happen. I’m the guy that put together a South Pacific initiative with AUKUS. I’m the guy that got 50 nations out– not only in Europe, outside of Europe as well to help Ukraine.”

In its Friday story, the Post also reported it spoke to a Democrat named Armand Domalewski of California who drew a comparison between Biden and Trump after viewing the same interview on ABC and also took issue with Biden’s tan.

The newspaper reported:

Armand Domalewski was at a Fourth of July weekend barbecue in Los Angeles when he unlocked his phone and saw a ripple of clips on his social media feeds. There was Joe Biden, looking cool in a pinstripe shirt with a couple of buttons undone, sitting across from ABC News anchor George Stephanopoulos for a damage-control interview after an awful debate against Donald Trump.

Something struck him. The president looked a little … different. He showed the phone to his girlfriend nearby.

“She immediately flagged it, like, ‘Why is he orange?’”

At least 20 congressional Democrats have called for Biden to step aside since his debate against Trump.