President Joe Biden failed to “take the hint” from fellow Democrats to step aside following his June 27 debate with former President Donald Trump, Axios’ co-founder Mike Allen said Thursday on “Morning Joe.”
Biden faced multiple calls to step aside as the Democratic nominee after he froze at times and made several verbal gaffes during the CNN debate with Trump. Allen said that Biden was “self-isolating, both medically and politically” after he rebuffed the efforts to make him step aside. (RELATED: ‘Completely Self-Inflicted’: CNN Guest Says Biden ‘Never, Ever Recovered’ From Disastrous Afghanistan Withdrawal)
“There was an effort among top Democrats to give President Biden the chance to walk off the stage. They said he is proud, he is stubborn. We love him. We appreciate him. We want to give him the chance to walk off the stage,” Allen told “Morning Joe” co-hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski. “President Biden, in the view these top Democrats, did not take the hint. And the way that one top Democrat, someone very close to the West Wing, put it to me Sunday as I sat here on the floor of this hall with my laptop, doing reporting at the Republican convention about what was happening in the Democratic Party, they said, ‘We don’t want to humiliate him.’ That was the effort.”
WATCH:
‘Morning Joe’ Guest Says Biden ‘Did Not Take The Hint’ From Dems To Drop Out Of Race pic.twitter.com/7oG4HtkUNB
— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) July 18, 2024
Trump leads Biden by 2.5% in a national head-to-head matchup, according to the RealClearPolling average of polls, with the lead expanding to 3.7% when Green Party candidate Jill Stein and independent candidates Robert F. Kennedy, Jr and Cornel West are included in surveys.
“President Biden is now self-isolating both medically and politically,” Allen added. “With Covid now, he had given the — the sequences he had said, ‘What could get him out of the race? The President had said, ‘The Lord Almighty,’ then he said, ‘Data, polling that showed I couldn’t win.’ Then he said health. Then privately there’s reporting saying that he’s being told that Vice President Harris can win. So — so all his boxes now are checked.”
Allen noted that Democrats couldn’t force Biden out, despite the bad poll numbers.
“The president has to choose this. He has the delegates. The statement yesterday from both the campaign and the White House, he is the nominee or soon will be. They can’t take it from him. He has to make that choice,” Allen said.
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