Senator Michael Bennet (D-Col) told CNN on Tuesday he does not think President Joe Biden can win reelection in November. The senator, who has run for president, said he was afraid former President Donald Trump could “maybe win it by a landslide.”
“Donald Trump is on track I think to win this election and maybe win it by a landslide and take with him the Senate and the House,” Bennet said, repeating concerns he had raised in lunch with fellow senior Democrats on Tuesday. “For me, this isn’t a question about polling, it’s not a question about politics. It’s a moral question about the future of our country.”
“We’re all here this week to have this discussion, to have this debate,” Bennet said. “The White House, in the time since that disastrous debate, I think has done nothing to demonstrate that they have a plan to win this election … they need to do that.”
Bennet refuted Biden’s claim that only the party elite wanted him to drop out of the presidential race. “These are my voters who have said to me, ‘I’ve been through this with my mom, I’ve been through this with my dad. I’m terrified about what it will mean if Donald Trump is elected president again in this country.’”
Biden campaign responded to Bennet’s appearance saying, “No one is more committed to defeating Donald Trump and defending our democracy than Joe Biden, and few know better than Joe Biden the importance of showing up and campaigning to earn the support of voters. This was always going to be a close race.”
But last Friday, many Democrats, both in politics and the media, were shocked to hear Biden tell ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos last Friday when asked how he would feel if he stayed in the race and then lost to Trump: “As long as I gave it my all, and did as good of a job as I know I can do. That’s what this is about.”
Those Democrats were wondering if Biden understood the magnitude of change a Trump victory would bring – regardless of whether one is for or against such a massive change.
Other Democrats continued to whistle in the dark, like Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.), co-chair of Biden’s campaign, who told The Washington Post, “We need to remember that President Biden for 30 years has been someone who has a stutter, who occasionally misspeaks … and not judge him by too high a standard.”
Marina Hyde expressed best the sense of delusion emanating from the Democratic leadership these days, writing in The Guardian, currently a bastion of left-wing anxiety, “This is all more than beginning to feel like the path over the edge, which the Democratic establishment has thoughtfully plotted out by its truly timeworn tactic of hoping for the best, and in no way preparing for the worst. What’s the worst that can happen, ask people who already saw the worst happen once before. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice … autocracy? As far as Biden’s cognitive state is concerned, if only there had been different signs to all the signs there were…”
Finally, The New York Times offered the best headline to describe the Democrats’ zeitgeist: “On Capitol Hill, Democrats Panic About Biden but Do Nothing.” Mind you, this is not the headline for an op-ed piece, it is a news report.
