Former DNC Chief Gets Pushback on Claim of Scant Alarm Over Biden’s Debate Performance

CNN host John Berman on Monday refuted Democratic Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz’s assertion that it’s just “elites” who are worrying about President Joe Biden’s debate performance.

Biden, during his Thursday debate with former President Donald Trump, spoke with a raspy voice and trailed off, prompting concerns about his age and fitness for office. Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., appeared to attempt on “CNN News Central” to dismiss these worries as only stemming from “elites,” rather than ordinary Americans, but Berman told her he does not believe the assessment is accurate.

“Look, this is a conversation, honestly, John, that is taking place among elites,” Wasserman Schultz said.

“I just don’t think that’s true, congresswoman … I just think that anyone who was anywhere this weekend, talking to anybody, the subject of discussion was the debate and was President Biden’s performance. I don’t think that that discussion is only members of Congress,” Berman responded.

Wasserman Schultz then clarified she was not just talking about members of Congress when she said “elites.” (On Tuesday, Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Texas, became the first Democrat in Congress to call for Biden’s withdrawal from the 2024 presidential race.)

“There are certainly a greater breadth of how I would define ‘elites.’ I mean my constituents at home, voters across this country, are not going to be focused on what The New York Times or what the Atlanta Journal-Constitution talks about,” she said. “They’re not focused on what the political elites are hand-wringing about. They’re focused on making sure that we can have a president like Joe Biden, who continues to fight to bring inflation down, who continues to fight to make sure that we can reshore American jobs, like we did with the CHIPS and Science Act.

“When I’m home among my constituents, they care about the bottom line in their lives, and they care that we don’t have a president like Donald Trump was, who tried to overturn the results of a legitimate election, who populated his administration with unethical people and who were focused more on enriching Donald Trump and themselves. And that’s the choice.”

“They want to make sure we have a president who is going to have their back, not give the American people the back of his hand, which is what Donald Trump did over and over again,” the former Democratic National Committee chairwoman added. “And at the end of the day, we’ve got to stop. We don’t have time for this hand-wringing. We have less than five months to an election. We have less than two months to the convention. We need to double down on organization right now, not on worrying about what happened during a 90-minute debate.”

Any attempt to replace Biden with another Democratic candidate would likely face practical, political, and even legal obstacles. Democrats have raised the possibility of replacing the president as the party’s nominee, but Biden has not indicated any intention to step down.

Originally published by the Daily Caller News Foundation

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