Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Texas, became the first elected Democrat to call President Biden He decided to withdraw from the 2024 presidential race, saying the president “failed” during last week’s debate to defend his record and reassure voters that he is the right person for the job.
Acknowledging Biden’s achievements for his party, Doggett said In a statement Tuesday, he said that “many Americans have expressed dissatisfaction with their choices in this election.”
Doggett said, “President Biden is trailing far behind Democratic senators in key states and trailing Donald Trump in most polls. I had hoped the debate would provide some momentum to change that. It did not. Instead of reassuring voters, the president failed to effectively defend his many accomplishments and expose Trump’s many lies.”
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Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Texas, said Tuesday that he expects Biden to “make the painful and difficult decision to withdraw” from a 2024 race for the White House. (Getty Images)
“Our biggest consideration must be who has the best hope of saving our democracy from an authoritarian takeover by a criminal and his gang,” he added. “There is too much at stake to risk a Trump victory — too great a risk to assume that what couldn’t be changed in a year, what wasn’t changed in a debate, can be changed now.”
He said, “President Biden saved our democracy by saving us from Trump in 2020. He must not hand us over to Trump in 2024.”
Amid calls for Biden to withdraw his name, Doggett reflected on former President Lyndon Johnson’s “painful” decision in 1968 not to seek re-election to the White House.
“I represent the congressional district that was once represented by Lyndon Johnson. Under very different circumstances, he made the painful decision to step aside. President Biden must do the same,” the Texas lawmaker said. “While much of his work has been transformational, he has pledged to be transitional.”
Doggett claimed the president has an opportunity to “encourage a new generation of leaders, one of whom can be selected to unify our country through an open, democratic process.”
He said, “My decision to make these strong objections public is not taken lightly nor does it in any way diminish my respect for what President Biden has accomplished. Recognizing that, unlike Trump, President Biden’s first commitment has always been to our country, not to himself, I expect he will make the painful and difficult decision to step back. I respectfully call on him to do so.”
Doggett said Biden has an opportunity to “encourage a new generation of leaders, one of whom could be the candidate chosen to unify our country through an open, democratic process.” (Alex Wong/Getty Images)
Doggett’s comments come less than a week after Biden’s disastrous debate against former President Barack Obama. President Donald TrumpPotential Republican candidate for the 2024 presidential election.
Biden tries to flip script on negative narrative that emerged from disastrous debate with Trump
Biden struggled at times, speaking in a raspy voice and giving vague answers Some excerpts from the debateHowever, many political analysts said that as the debate progressed, the President became more sharp in his answers.
Biden’s uneven and sometimes stilted performance stole most of the debate’s headlines and sparked a fresh round of calls from political pundits, publications and some Democrats for the president to step down as the party’s flag-bearer. Biden’s top aides have resisted such talk as they defended the president and lashed out at Trump for “lying” during the debate.
Biden, the day after his debate performance, aimed to address Democratic Party Panic.
“I know I’m not young, that’s an obvious thing,” Biden, 81, the oldest president in the nation’s history, told cheering supporters at a rally Friday afternoon in the key battleground state. North Carolina,
“Folks, I don’t walk as smoothly as I used to. I don’t speak as smoothly as I used to. I don’t even debate as well as I used to,” Biden admitted. “But I know what I know. I know how to tell the truth. I know the difference between right and wrong. And I know how to do this job. I know how to get the job done. And I know, as millions of Americans know, when you get knocked down you get back up again.”
President Biden and former President Trump during a debate in Atlanta, Georgia on June 27, 2024. (Getty Images)
In a statement shared with Fox News Digital, Jack Pandol, communications director for the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC), said, “The cowards in the Democratic caucus have spent every day since the debate in witness protection, too afraid to say what they’re thinking.”
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“Americans remember that House Democrats were involved in covering up the president’s position and misleading the public, and voters are ready to punish them in November,” Pandol said.
Fox News’ Paul Steinhauser contributed to this report.
