Top House Democrat Says He Doesn’t Want to Risk Biden Debating Again Before the Election, Calls For Him to Drop Out

Rep. Jim Himes (D-CT), the ranking member of the Intelligence Committee, joined CNN’s Kaitlan Collins following President Joe Biden’s press conference and explained his call for the president to step aside.

“Not a single number out there. Not what, you know. Cook Report telling us that we may lose the House that says that Joe Biden is going to win. And so the answer to that, which is a fair answer, is that, yeah, but there’s still time,” Himes began, adding:

There’s 4 or 5 months to the election. So then you need to ask yourself, what’s the trajectory look like here? Are things getting better? If you believe that the problem the Democrats have is that we haven’t gotten our message across, the message with the bipartisan infrastructure law, the message of capping out-of-pocket expenses and Medicare at $2,000 and capping insulin costs at $35 and standing up for veterans. And if you believe that our problem is that we haven’t gotten that message across.

Well, and if you also believe that the president has the biggest megaphone, you have to drop the emotion and the loyalty and love and say, in the next 4 or 5 months, is that story going to be told with such precision and poetry and beauty that you will turn around all the numbers that say, we are going to lose? And I did this painful thing tonight because for me, the answer to that is I just don’t see that trajectory. I don’t see the numbers.

Collins followed up, “And you think he’ll lose to Donald Trump if Joe Biden goes up against him?”

“Look, I, you know, like Yogi Berra said, predictions are hard, especially about the future,” Himes replied, adding:

All I can do is look at the numbers right now. No president has ever won with a 37% approval rating. Look at the swing states, because this isn’t a race that is decided in 5 or 6 states. You know, the president, you can look at lots of different polls. The president isn’t really up in any of them.

And then you can ask yourself, and again, this is future. This is we don’t know the future. What is the trajectory look like? And imagine that three months from now we get another performance like there was in the debate right before the election. Do you want to take that risk? I don’t. Now, you know, I don’t presume to understand the president’s calculus. Yeah, but he’s top ten presidents, right? Why would you gamble that legacy? The legacy of being a top ten American president. Transformative. Lyndon B. Johnson transformative. And you’re going to gamble that on possibly being the guy that handed the country over to a tyrant?

Watch the clip above via CNN.