Texas Rep. Lloyd Doggett becomes first Democrat congressman to publicly call for Biden to step down.
Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-Texas) called for Joe Biden to drop out of the 2024 presidential race on Tuesday, making him the first Democrat lawmaker to do so publicly.
Doggett, who is serving his 15th term in Congress representing the Austin-area district, said in a statement that Biden should “make the painful and difficult decision to withdraw,” citing his disastrous debate performance.
“President Biden has continued to run substantially behind Democratic senators in key states and in most polls has trailed Donald Trump. I had hoped the debate would provide some momentum to change that. It did not,” Doggett wrote.
Woah
Austin Dem Rep. Lloyd Doggett calls on Biden to withdraw pic.twitter.com/IZod4LDeD1
— Matthew Choi (@matthewichoi) July 2, 2024
“Instead of reassuring voters, the President failed to effectively defend his many accomplishments and expose Trump’s many lies.”
“Too much is at stake to risk a Trump victory — too great a risk to assume that what could not be turned around in a year, was not turned around in the debate, can be turned around now,” he continued. “President Biden saved our democracy by delivering us from Trump in 2020. He must not deliver us to Trump in 2024.”
Doggett went on to say, “My decision to make these strong reservations public is not done lightly nor does it in any way diminish my respect for all that President Biden has achieved.”
“Recognizing that, unlike Trump, President Biden’s first commitment has always been to our country, not himself, I am hopeful that he will make the painful and difficult decision to withdraw. I respectfully call on him to do so,” he added.
Though other Democrat lawmakers acknowledged Biden’s terrible debate performance, they’ve all shied from directly calling on him to step down.
In fact, top Democrats like former Presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, along with Hillary Clinton and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, all doubled down on their support for Biden after the debate.
But Democrat governors of multiple states reportedly held a conference call Monday to discuss their concerns about Biden’s atrocious presidential debate performance.
And apparently the political pressure to drop Biden is becoming so great — such as the New York Times editorial board calling on Biden to drop out — that even Pelosi on Tuesday appeared to change her tune.
“I think it’s a legitimate question to say, is this an episode or is this a condition?” Pelosi asked on MSNBC.
Whoa! Did Nancy Pelosi just signal a pivot away from her stalwart defense of Joe Biden?
“I think it’s a legitimate question to say, ‘Is this an episode or is this a condition?'” pic.twitter.com/K1Zc48pI48
— Charlie Kirk (@charliekirk11) July 2, 2024
