Former CNN political analyst Chris Cillizza on Tuesday criticized Democrats who have attempted to muzzle concerns about President Joe Biden after his Thursday debate with former President Donald Trump.
Biden spoke with a raspy voice and trailed off during the debate, prompting Americans to voice concerns about his age and viability, but some have expressed opposition to focusing on the president’s competence rather than Trump’s alleged autocratic tendencies. Cillizza, on his YouTube channel, rebuked Democrats for efforts to suppress worries about Biden in order to help him beat Trump and preserve “democracy.” (RELATED: Biden Lies That No Troops Have Died Under His Watch)
WATCH:
“The reaction to Joe Biden’s debate performance among Democrats is stunning to me. There’s this one line of argument that I really want to call out because, I’m not going to swear, but it’s BS,” Cillizza said. “Okay. Here’s a response to a tweet I sent out. This is from someone named Thundercat: … ‘I hope the press remembers these stories and tweets when Trump wins and you’re all looking through the bars of a jail cell as he tramples freedom of the press. The courts have shown they’re willing to follow his lead. That’s going to be a wow story for sure. Best of luck.'”
“First of all, do I think Donald Trump has dictatorial tendencies? I do. Do I think he prefers authoritarianism to democracy? I do. Do I think he can, in the space of four years, destroy democracy and turn our country into a dictatorship? I do not,” Cillizza said. “If you look at other countries where authoritarianism is on the march, Turkey for example, it’s a long process … That doesn’t mean he won’t hurt the free press, do all those sorts of things. But the idea that if Donald Trump wins, democracy ends and everyone’s in jail seems to me to be overblown.”
Cillizza suggested that nominating Biden, given his present capacity based on the debate is “a massive risk to democracy.”
“Writing about that and the possibility that maybe he needs to step down or needs to be replaced, I would argue, is really important,” he added. “Because if you go forward knowing what we know about Joe Biden, you are taking a massive, massive risk if you’re a Democrat. Because you are saying to people, ‘Yeah, we know you think he’s too old. Yeah, he kind of showed he might just be too old, but it doesn’t matter because Donald Trump is the other nominee.'”
“Well, if it’s so important to beat Donald Trump, then shouldn’t we litigate whether Joe Biden is the best person to beat Donald Trump now?” the former CNN analyst asked. “Like, we just have to accept that he is and that you can’t say anything negative about Joe Biden because, well, Donald Trump’s the Republican nominee? If it’s that important, then these people should be the ones who are the most willing to say, ‘We need to reexamine this, right? Beating Trump is critical because democracy is going to end.’ And if democracy is going to end, then we have to nominate the person who has the best chance at beating Trump and therefore preserving democracy, right?”
Cillizza said it is “insane” to try to block people from saying Biden isn’t the ideal candidate to take on Trump.
“It makes no sense that we just have to tacitly accept that Biden is the nominee, no matter even if people think he’s too old and he’s demonstrated he’s too old, like in a really public setting,” he said. “It just seems crazy to me and is not at all what I think these people want, which is they want the best person who they believe can beat Donald Trump.”
The New York Times editorial board advocated for Biden to pull out of the 2024 presidential race after the debate. Efforts to find an alternative Democratic candidate would probably encounter practical, political and legal obstacles.
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