- Sen. John Fetterman defended Biden following Biden's poor performance in last week's debate.
- “I refuse to join the Democratic vultures who sat on Biden's shoulders after the debate,” he wrote on X.
- Fetterman, who previously performed badly in his own debates, slammed critics who said he would lose the 2022 election.
Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman has a message to Democrats calling for President Joe Biden to step down following his poor performance in Thursday's debate: “Calm down.”
For Fetterman, the doubts and outright panic from some Democrats about Biden are reminiscent of the criticism he faced at the end of his pitched 2022 Senate runoff race against his then-GOP opponent, Dr. Mehmet Oz, a well-known surgeon general.
In a series of remarks following the debate between Biden and former President Donald Trump, Fetterman made it clear he was pushing back against members of his party who had sought an alternative to the president.
“I refuse to join the Democratic vultures who have been riding Biden's shoulders since the debate,” the senator wrote to X. “No one knows better than me that a tough debate is not the sum of a person and their record.”
Mr Biden now faces one of the toughest challenges of his political career: continuing to campaign while assuring supporters he is fit to run and resisting pressure from some Democrats to make way for a younger, newer candidate.
Fetterman said after the 2022 debate that some experts predicted he would lose to Oz, and the senator gleefully pointed out that not only did he win, but it was the only race in the country that year in which the seat switched parties.
“What happened?” Fetterman wrote. “One seat flipped and won by a historic margin (+5). Calm down.”
During an appearance on “Fox News Sunday,” the senator again compared his situation to Biden's.
“It was a difficult debate, but I still managed to win,” he told host Shannon Bream. “You don't define your career on one debate.”
Fetterman's debate took place in October 2022 after he suffered a stroke in May of that year. The candidate's speaking style at the time was affected by the stroke, and Republicans jumped at the chance to make his health an issue ahead of the general election and question whether he was fit to serve as a senator. Some Democrats at the time questioned why Fetterman had agreed to debate Oz, and worried that his performance might have boosted the Republican Party's fortunes.
After his term as a senator began last year, Fetterman took time off to be treated for depression at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. Since winning his Senate election, Fetterman has spoken openly about the experience and the “downward spiral” he experienced.
