Democrats cannot credibly stick with President Joe Biden after three weeks of questioning his ability to win re-election and serve a second term, according to MSNBC's Claire McCaskill.
The calls for Biden to step aside suddenly burst into public following his alarming debate performance, and the president's efforts to alleviate their concerns have failed to stop the bleeding of support from congressional Democrats who are concerned about their own re-election chances, and McCaskill told "Morning Joe" that it's probably too late to turn things around.
"They watched the debate, realized that the age issue had now become something that was very, very big," McCaskill said. "Immediately afterwards, those candidates and those elected leaders of our party thought, well, let's give Joe Biden space and grace because, you know, this was a horrible night for him, and everyone felt for him personally, about how difficult that night had to have been for him and his family, and the other thing that happened is everyone waited a week to 10 days to poll. I think you can assume that every single battleground state where we have a Senate election waited seven to 10 days, then went in the field."
"Those polls all came back, and as time went on, it appeared the circle around Joe Biden got closer and closer," McCaskill added. "Then it came time for the leaders of those groups, Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer, to take data to the president and say, 'This is what we're facing, this is really a problem.' Not that anyone, I think, took joy in that, not that anyone is trying to push Joe Biden off a cliff."
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McCaskill said the threat posed by a second Donald Trump presidency was too dire to risk putting forth a candidate who lacks full support from his own party.
"I think everyone is feeling a lot of mixed emotions about this – everyone – because there is this thing looming, and we watched it last night," McCaskill said. "People who 10 minutes ago were calling Donald Trump a Hitler and unhinged are now going, rah-rah, you know, isn't he great?"
The Biden campaign's efforts to push past concerns from inside the Democratic Party has frustrated and angered skeptics who believe he might not be strong enough to win and serve a second term, McCaskill said.
"It is something that I think, when they tried to move up the roll call, I think that, frankly, turned a lot of people that were sympathetic to where Joe Biden was to being angry and mad," she said. "That not only were they not listening to the concerns of the other elected people in his party, but that they were hell-bent on going forward even more quickly than they needed to, to try to, like, slam the door on honest concerns of a whole lot of – and these aren't elite voters out there, guys. You know, I can just tell you from my time over the last week, most people who come up to me that are folks like, you know, my plumber who called me, these are people that are really worried about Donald Trump being president."
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MSNBC 07 18 2024 07 06 52 youtu.be
