Democratic Senator publicly asks Biden to quit amid calls to end White House race

Support for US President Joe Biden for the presidential race in the forthcoming elections has further dwindled after former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Hollywood actor George Clooney and two Senate Democrats have cast doubts on his candidature. The 81-year-old President has been facing mounting pressure to quit the race following his dismal performance in a debate with former President and Republican pick Donald Trump last month.

In an interview with news channel MSNBC, Pelosi stressed that Joe Biden has a “decision” to make because “time is running short”.

“It’s up to the president to decide if he is going to run. We’re all encouraging him to make that decision because time is running short,” she said.

Clooney, on the other hand, a Democrat who co-hosted a star-studded fundraiser for the 81-year-old US President last month, also dropped his backing for Joe Biden with a strong opinion piece in the New York Times, saying he “loved” him, but he cannot win the “fight against time”.

“None of us can. It’s devastating to say it, but the Joe Biden I was with three weeks ago at the fundraiser was not the Joe ‘big F-ing deal’ Biden of 2010. He wasn’t even the Joe Biden of 2020. He was the same man we all witnessed at the debate,” the actor wrote in the op-ed.

Meanwhile, Senator Peter Welch publicly asked Joe Biden to withdraw from the presidential race with another op-ed published in The Washington Post. He said Democrats cannot “unsee” the US President’s “disastrous debate performance”.

“We cannot ignore or dismiss the valid questions raised since that night. For the good of the country, I’m calling on President Biden to withdraw from the race,” Welch wrote.

The Senator further urged Joe Biden to reassess whether he is the best pick to beat former President and Republican candidate Donald Trump, adding that mounting concerns and talks about the 81-year-old’s age, health and abilities have shifted focus from Trump’s flaws.

“Trump is a felon. He is a pathological liar. He is a menace. And he is sure to be emboldened by his activist Supreme Court, which granted him near total immunity. But the national conversation is focused on President Biden’s age and capacity. Only he can change it,” Peter Welch wrote in the op-ed.

Despite the increasing pressure, Joe Biden has stayed firm on his decision to stay in the presidential race. On Monday, in a strong letter to his fellow Democrats, he reiterated that he wasn’t going to back out, adding that he would not be seeking re-election if he wasn’t sure he was “the best man to defeat Donald Trump in 2024”.

Furthermore, in a recent interview with George Stephanopoulos of ABC News, Joe Biden said only the Lord Almighty can convince him to stay out of the race.

Amid concerns over Joe Biden’s age, the Republican-led US House of Representatives Oversight Committee has summoned three senior White House aides, demanding they sit for depositions regarding the Democratic President’s health, the panel said in a statement.

It has summoned First Lady Jill Biden’s top aide Anthony Bernal, deputy chief of staff Annie Tomasini, and senior adviser Ashley Williams, Axios reported.

Republican US Representative James Comer, the panel’s chairperson, said in the statement that key White House staff must appear before the committee so that Americans can get the “transparency and accountability” that they deserve. He also called Joe Biden “unfit” for office and alleged his staff were not being transparent.

White House spokesperson Ian Sams, however, called the summons a “baseless political stunt” and that James Comer was “weaponising” them to get headlines instead of “seeking information through the proper constitutional process”, news agency Reuters reported.