Democrats are so panicked over President Joe Biden’s faltering debate performance some are actively discussing what was once unspeakable: replacing him on the ticket.
Three strategists close to three potential Democratic presidential candidates said they had been bombarded with text messages throughout the debate. One adviser said they received pleas for their candidate to step forward as an alternative to Biden.
Another adviser said they had “taken no less than half a dozen key donors texting ‘disaster’ and [the] party needs to do something,” but acknowledged that “not much is possible unless” Biden steps aside.
They were among more than a dozen Democrats who spoke with POLITICO, most of whom were granted anonymity to speak freely.
One major Democratic donor and Biden supporter said it was time for the president to end his campaign. This person described Biden’s night as “the worst performance in history” and said Biden was so “bad that no one will pay attention to Trump’s lies.”
“Biden needs to drop out. No question about it,” the donor said in a text message, proposing an alternate ticket led by the governors of Maryland and Michigan.
At least two prominent potential 2028 contenders — Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker and California Gov. Gavin Newsom — said they stood by Biden even after his performance.
Newsom, when pressed on MSNBC if Biden should step down, said that talk is “unhelpful” and “unnecessary.”
“You don’t turn your back because of one performance,” Newsom said. “What kind of party does that?”
Biden struggled throughout much of the debate, the first 2024 general election matchup between the president and former President Donald Trump. The 81-year-old president has long faced questions about his fitness for office, and the debate — the earliest general election matchup of its kind in modern political history — had been a gambit by the Biden campaign to reset the narrative around the race.
For weeks, Democrats had hoped a strong performance by Biden in the debate could ease concerns about his age. Instead, it did the opposite.
“No Labels and Dean Phillips won this debate,” said a former senior Biden White House official, referring to the outsider efforts to push a different candidate, not named Trump or Biden, into the race.
The pleas from within the party, while unlikely to actually result in a change atop the ticket, reflect a major turn in the campaign. Incumbent presidents have traditionally underperformed during their first debates — inundated by the demands of the job and often unable to dedicate serious time to preparation. But Thursday’s debate was unique in that it affirmed an existing preconception of Biden among many voters as a candidate past his sell-by debate.
One adviser to major Democratic Party donors said they were texting from a meeting of donors in Atlanta on Thursday night, some writing “wtf.”
“Our only hope is that he bows out, we have a brokered convention, or dies,” the donor adviser said. “Otherwise we are fucking dead.”
Nonetheless, the likelihood of a brokered convention or Biden stepping aside are unlikely, a reality that even those who privately complained about Biden’s performance acknowledged.
“Only one guy can decide, and it’s him,” said one Democratic strategist.
The Biden campaign pushed back on the critique of the president, with an adviser calling him “the only person who has ever beaten Donald Trump.”
“He will do it again,” the adviser said. “Donald Trump did not give voters any reason to vote for him tonight. On the issues, the American people are with Joe Biden.”
Asked if Biden would be dropping out, one campaign aide said “of course not.” The aide said the hour just after the debate — from 11 p.m. to midnight — was the campaign’s strongest hour of grassroots fundraising since it launched.
In a statement, Biden’s campaign chair Jen O’Malley Dillon said Biden “presented a positive and winning vision for the future of America,” while Trump “offered a dark and backwards window into what America will look like if he steps foot back in the White House.”
Stephanie Cutter, a Democratic consultant, said, “President Biden is the Democratic nominee and that’s not changing because of one debate performance.”
She said, “We need to calm down and stay focused because Donald Trump certainly didn’t gain any voters tonight.”
But for many Democrats on Thursday night, the view was far dimmer. One down-ballot statewide Democrat running for election said: “I mean, it’s not great all around. Our president has a speech impediment, a cold, and is 81.”
“No one expected a master class in debating from Joe Biden, but no one expected this nose dive,” said a senior adviser to top Democratic officials. “He was bad on message, bad on substance, bad on counter punching, bad on presentation, bad on non-verbals. There was no bright spot in this debate for him. The only bright spot is that this happened in June and not October.”
The President-elect of the United States, Donald Trump, has vowed to make good on his election promises of mass deportations and new tariffs in his first television interview since his re-election.
Appearing on NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday, Trump reiterated his intention to deport every person who had entered the US without authorisation.
“I think you have to do it, and it’s a very tough thing to do, but you have rules, regulations, laws. They came in illegally,” Trump said.
“You know, the people who have been treated unfairly are the people who have been waiting on line for 10 years to come into the country.”
Trump said he was willing to work with Democrats to keep so-called “Dreamers”– undocumented people who came to the US as children and have lived in the US most of their lives – in the country but also suggested that US citizens could be deported along with their undocumented family members.
“I don’t want to be breaking up families,” Trump said. “So the only way you don’t break up the family is you keep them together and you have to send them all back.”
Trump also reiterated his intention to end birthright citizenship, which is guaranteed by the 14th Amendment of the US Constitution.
Amending the Constitution is a lengthy and difficult process involving Congress and all 50 states, but Trump said he was exploring options including an “executive action” to end what he called a “ridiculous” right.
“I’m looking to make our country great. I’m looking to bring down prices because I won on two things… I won on the border, and I won on groceries,” he said.
Trump said that while he “can’t guarantee” that his plan to impose tariffs on Canada, China and Mexico would not push up prices, tariffs would ultimately help the US economy.
“I’m a big believer in tariffs. Tariffs are beautiful. They’re going to make us rich,” he said.
“Why are we subsidising these countries? If we’re going to subsidise them, let them become a State.”
During the interview, Trump also discussed plans to pull back on US support for Ukraine and said Kyiv should “probably” prepare for less aid.
Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Washington has approved nearly $183bn in military, humanitarian and other assistance to Ukraine, according to US government data.
Outgoing President Joe Biden has pledged a further $988m in aid and an additional $925m before he leaves office on January 20.
The Republican said he was “actively” trying to end the war in Ukraine but would not confirm how recently he had spoken to Russian President Vladimir Putin, whom he has spoken about with admiration in the past.
“I don’t want to say anything that could impede the negotiation,” he said.
Trump said that the US would only remain in NATO if members “pay their bills” and if its majority European members “treat the US fairly” by expanding bilateral trade.
The president-elect also said that if he had remained in the White House after the 2020 election, the wars in Ukraine and Gaza would have never happened.
Trump and many of his supporters claim that the 2020 election was “stolen” by Biden and the Democrats.
Anger over the election results later led Trump supporters to storm the US Capitol building on January 6, 2021, in a failed bid to overturn the vote.
During his interview, Trump said he would consider pardoning the 944 people who received criminal sentences for their role in the uprising.
Among them, 562 had been sentenced to prison time as of August, according to the US Justice Department.
“I’m going to look at everything. We’ll look at individual cases, but I’m going to be acting very quickly… the first day,” Trump said.
“These people have been in prison three to four years, and they’re in a filthy, disgusting place that shouldn’t even be allowed to be open.”
Trump said that lawmakers who took part in a Congressional investigation into the events of January 6 should go to prison, although he stopped short of saying he would direct the FBI to investigate.
Trump also said he would not stop his chosen FBI director, Kash Patel, from investigating the so-called “deep state”.
“If they think that somebody was dishonest or crooked or a corrupt politician, I think he probably has an obligation to do so,” Trump said.
Trump sidestepped questions about whether he would appoint a special prosecutor to investigate Biden, although he separately accused the outgoing president of weaponising the justice system against him.
“I’m looking to make our country successful. Retribution will be through success,” Trump said.
The president-elect also said that if he had remained in the White House after the 2020 election, the wars in Ukraine and Gaza would have never happened.
Trump and many of his supporters claim that the 2020 election was “stolen” by Biden and the Democrats.
Anger over the election results later led Trump supporters to storm the US Capitol building on January 6, 2021, in a failed bid to overturn the vote.
During his interview, Trump said he would consider pardoning the 944 people who received criminal sentences for their role in the uprising.
Among them, 562 had been sentenced to prison time as of August, according to the US Justice Department.
“I’m going to look at everything. We’ll look at individual cases, but I’m going to be acting very quickly… the first day,” Trump said.
“These people have been in prison three to four years, and they’re in a filthy, disgusting place that shouldn’t even be allowed to be open.”
Trump said that lawmakers who took part in a Congressional investigation into the events of January 6 should go to prison, although he stopped short of saying he would direct the FBI to investigate.
Trump also said he would not stop his chosen FBI director, Kash Patel, from investigating the so-called “deep state”.
“If they think that somebody was dishonest or crooked or a corrupt politician, I think he probably has an obligation to do so,” Trump said.
Trump sidestepped questions about whether he would appoint a special prosecutor to investigate Biden, although he separately accused the outgoing president of weaponising the justice system against him.
“I’m looking to make our country successful. Retribution will be through success,” Trump said.
The D-day has finally arrived, and millions of Americans are set to head to the polls and choose between the two presidential candidates who remain neck and neck in the polls.
Democratic candidate and Vice President Kamala Harris and Republican former President Donald Trump who have been embroiled in a relentless battle for votes for months, remain split by 1.2% in favour of Harris according to the latest polls Monday — a lead well within the margin of error.
Trump wrapped up his campaign trail with a final speech in Grand Rapids, in the swing State of Michigan he flipped back in 2016. Meanwhile, Harris concluded by pledging to “get to work” if elected in Philadelphia, another battleground state where incumbent Democratic President Joe Biden won by 1.2% in 2020.
Europe and the rest of the world remain on tenterhooks as the result of the vote might lead to protests and legal challenges similar to the aftermath of the vote four years ago.
Trump’s final campaign speech concluded in Michigan. The former president stuck to some policy points, namely immigration, but spent a portion of his final message meandering through a series of tangents, and criticising Harris.
Promising to usher in a new “golden age” for the US, he then spoke about assigning nicknames for his political opponents — and said “groceries” was an old term he hadn’t heard much.
He cast doubt on the electoral process, saying using “paper” for ballots was old-fashioned and slow, insisting “we want the answer tonight.”
Harris was the subject of much vitriol, with Trump saying the Democrat has a “low IQ” and that she and Biden had destroyed the US.
He said Nancy Pelosi and Democrats were “trouble for our country. They are bad, sick, people.”
At the end of his speech, he brought out the mayor of Hamtrack, Amer Ghalib, on stage to signal his support among Arab Americans.
Republicans are hoping Arab American voters, frustrated with Biden’s policies in the Middle East, will vote for Trump today.
Harris expressed ‘optimism’ and ‘joy’ at final rally in Philadelphia.
“Ours is not a fight against nothing, but for something… Tonight we finish as we started: with energy, optimism, joy,” Democratic candidate Kamala Harris said, wrapping up her campaign trail in Philadelphia on Monday night.
Describing her months-long run as a fight for democracy, the incumbent vice-president chose to end on a positive note with one last appeal to young voters.
“Generations before us led the fight for freedom, and now the baton is in our hands,” Harris said. “We need to get to work and get out the vote.”
Philadelphia is the largest city in the East Coast state of Pennsylvania, one of the seven key swing states — US states where the election could reasonably go to either of the two candidates.
After weeks of campaigning, polls are set to open across the US to decide the next president.
It is currently past midnight eastern time with the first polls set to open in the northeastern state of Vermont in some places as early as 5 am EST (11am CET).
Polls in Hawaii and Alaska are set to close by 1 am EST (7 am CET).
Over 82 million have already voted, according to data published by the University of Florida’s election lab, breaking records in some crucial swing states such as North Carolina.
Both Harris and Trump delivered their final message to voters in rallies last night.
Harris pushed a message of unity and optimism for the US, focusing on abortion rights and pledging to lower food and housing costs.
Trump painted a picture of America in despair — a problem only he could fix. Policy-wise, he vowed to seal the border between the US and Mexico and has proposed trillions worth of tax cuts.
Both spent a portion of their speeches criticising the other, with Harris making a contrast between her and her opponent without using his name, and Trump calling Harris a “radical left lunatic,” among other things.
No fewer than 80 Nobel Prize winners have endorsed Kamala Harris for the presidency, warning that Donald Trump would “jeopardize any advancements in our standards of living” given his earlier proposals for enormous cuts to science funding.
In an open letter, a copy of which was obtained by The New York Times, 82 Nobel prize winners from the US in the fields of physics, chemistry, economics and medicine, said “this is the most consequential presidential election in a long time, perhaps ever, for the future of science and the United States”.
The letter, which commends Harris for recognizing that “the enormous increases in living standards and life expectancies over the past two centuries are largely the result of advances in science and technology”, called Trump a potential threat to progress who could “jeopardize any advancements in our standards of living and impede our responses to climate change”.
The Nobel laureates range from a physicist involved in the discovery of remnant light from the Big Bang, to an immunologist instrumental in the development of a specific type of COVID-19 vaccine.
They includes signatories who won Nobels this month such as the molecular biologist Gary Ruvkun, the chemist David Baker, the physicist John Hopfield and the economist Daron Acemoglu.
Driven by concerns over the significant cuts to science funding proposed during Trump’s tenure, coupled with what he perceives as the former president’s adversarial stance toward science and academia, Joseph Stiglitz, an economist at Columbia University who won the Nobel memorial prize in economic sciences in 2001, said he was motivated by the “enormous cuts in science budgets” that Trump proposed during his presidency, as well as former president’s “anti-science” and “anti-university” stances.
“I hope it’s a wake-up call for people,” Stiglitz told the New York Times about the letter. “A consequence of this election is the really profound impact that his agenda has on science and technology.”
The letter also lauds Harris for her understanding of the invaluable contributions immigrants make to scientific progress on a national and global scale.
On Thursday, in a separate letter obtained by CNN, 23 living US recipients of the Nobel prize in economics, have expressed their endorsement of Harris’s economic agenda, deeming it “vastly superior” to the economic strategies proposed by Trump.
“While each of us has different views on the particulars of various economic policies, we believe that, overall, Harris’s economic agenda will improve our nation’s health, investment, sustainability, resilience, employment opportunities, and fairness and be vastly superior to the counterproductive economic agenda of Donald Trump,” they wrote.
