CNN
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The New York Times editorial board is calling on President Joe Biden to withdraw from the race for the White House following his performance during CNN's presidential debate.
“The president emerged Thursday night as a shadow of the great public servant he is. He struggled to explain what he would accomplish in a second term. He struggled to respond to Mr. Trump's provocations. He struggled to hold Mr. Trump accountable for his lies, mistakes and terrible plans. And more than once, he struggled to finish sentences,” the committee said in an opinion piece published Friday.
“The greatest public service Mr. Biden could do now would be to announce that he will not run for reelection. As things stand, the president is taking a reckless gamble. There are other Democratic leaders who can offer a clear, compelling and vigorous alternative to a second Trump term. There is no reason for Democrats to risk the nation's stability and security by forcing voters to choose between Mr. Trump's shortcomings and Mr. Biden's. The gamble is too big to expect Americans to ignore or downplay Mr. Biden's advanced age and frailty as they see it with their own eyes,” the Times said.
The committee also said that if the choice still remained between Biden and former President Donald Trump, the committee would still support Biden as the “clear choice.”
The Biden campaign responded to the editorial board's criticism on Friday night.
“The last time Joe Biden lost the support of the New York Times editorial board, it turned out pretty well for him,” Biden campaign co-chair Cedric Richmond told CNN.
The Times has endorsed two Democratic candidates in the 2020 presidential election, Sens. Amy Klobuchar and Elizabeth Warren.
The New York Times article is the latest to criticize Biden's debate performance, which has set off alarm bells among Democratic Party leaders, with some openly questioning whether Biden can remain at the top of the Democratic field.
“He seemed a little confused. He certainly got stronger as the debate went on. But I think panic had set in by that point,” said David Axelrod, a longtime Democratic activist and senior political commentator for CNN.
Axelrod also commented on a conversation that was taking place among many Democrats Thursday night: “There will be a debate about whether he should continue.”
“There was a uniformly negative reaction to Biden's performance tonight,” host Alex Wagner said Thursday on MSNBC, a cable news channel considered a bastion of U.S. progressive politics, shortly after the debate.
“This was a debate to expose who Donald Trump is, but it was also about Joe Biden fighting the caricature that portrayed him as an infirm figure,” Wagner said of the debate, “and I don't think he did anything to dispel the public's assumption that he was very old and often forgotten in debates.”
–CNN's Betsy Klein, Casey Hunt, MJ Lee, Lauren Fox, Kayla Touche, Arlette Saenz and Hadas Gold contributed to this report.