The Biden campaign on Friday responded to the New York Times editorial board’s op-ed urging Biden to step aside after his poor debate performance in Atlanta on Thursday night.
“The last time Joe Biden lost the New York Times editorial board’s endorsement it turned out pretty well for him,” said campaign co-chair Cedric Richmond, who was previously a White House aide and a congressman from Louisiana.
The comment came after The New York Times editorial board published an op-ed on Friday calling on Biden to exit the race.
“The clearest path for Democrats to defeat a candidate defined by his lies is to deal truthfully with the American public: acknowledge that Mr. Biden can’t continue his race, and create a process to select someone more capable to stand in his place to defeat Mr. Trump in November,” the board wrote.
The paper’s editorial board ultimately backed Biden in the general election in 2020 but had selected Sens. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., and Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., during the Democratic primaries earlier that year.
At that time, the board had raised concerns about Biden’s age, saying, Biden, then 77, should “pass the torch to a new generation of political leaders.”
The editorial board’s op-ed comes as Democrats have expressed alarm following the president’s debate performance Thursday night, which was punctuated by a raspy voice and rhetorical missteps such as tripping over his words and apparently losing his train of thought.
Biden defended his capacity to serve in a Friday speech infused with energy that had been missing as he debated the night before.
“I know I’m not a young man,” Biden told supporters in Raleigh, North Carolina on Friday afternoon. “I don’t walk as easy as I used to. I don’t speak as smoothly as I used to. I don’t debate as well as I used to, but I know what I do know — I know how to tell the truth!”
Biden, at 81, is the oldest president in American history. His opponent, former President Donald Trump, is the second-oldest person ever to serve as president.
