Democrats ‘panicky, looking to replace Biden’ after shaky debate performance

John King, CNN’s chief national correspondent, says the Democratic party is looking to replace President Joe Biden as its presumptive nominee ahead of its national convention in August. 

Biden sparred with former US President Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, on Friday, in a debate hosted by CNN.

The incumbent’s speech was at times slurred, throaty, incoherent, he stuttered on occasion, and his ripostes came across as weak.

At one point, as the candidates debated on border closure and immigration, a gloating Trump said: “I really don’t understand what he said at the end of that sentence. I don’t think he knows what he said either.”

Analysing the performances of both candidates afterwards, all the CNN panellists submitted that Biden had done himself little favours on the night.

“It was a game changing debate in the sense that right now as we speak, there is a deep, a wide and a very aggressive panic in the Democratic party,” said King.

“The panic started minutes into the debate and continues right now. It involves party strategists, it involves elected officials, it involves fund-raisers.

“And they are having conversations about the president’s performance which they think was dismal, which they think will hurt other people down the party in the ticket. They are having conversations about what they should do about it.

“Some of those conversations include should we go to the White House and ask the president to step aside? Other conversations are about should prominent Democrats go public with that call? Because they think this debate was so terrible.

“They do say, in moments in the debate later, the president got better and got his footing. But then in the end, even his closing statement was a little halty. The contrast between the two candidates was stark.”

Abby Phillip, CNN anchor and a senior political correspondent who anchors CNN NewsNight, said Biden’s performance was “problematic” and “damaging”.

Other panellists said Biden was “deeply vulnerable”, his voice was “shaky”, and that Democrats are worried that they could be throwing away the presidency if Biden remains top of the ticket.

Biden, 81, and Trump, 78, sparred on the Russia-Ukraine war, Israel’s bombardment of Gaza, treatment of veterans, abortion, taxes, Medicare, inflation, Afghanistan, and America’s standing in the world — with the Republican repeatedly putting the Democrat on the defensive.

Trump was US president from 2017 to 2021. He lost his re-election bid to Biden and challenged the outcome of the vote in an unprecedented manner.

His supporters infamously invaded the US Capitol building on January 6, 2021, as Trump insisted that the election was stolen from him.