US President Joe Biden should “do the right thing” and drop out of the election race in favor of Vice President Kamala Harris, Nobel Prize winner and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman has said.
Democrats and key party donors are growing increasingly concerned about their prospects for the vote in November after Biden’s disastrous performance in the June 27 debate against Republican rival Donald Trump.
In a column on Monday, Krugman argued that Biden has been “ludicrously mistreated” by having his “every verbal or physical stumble” analyzed.
Despite this, however, Krugman, the 2008 Nobel Prize winner in economics, said Biden should stand aside as his party’s candidate for president.
Harris should “probably” be the one to take his place, he added.
The televised debate last month gave Biden a “golden opportunity” to “be calm and reassuring” in the face of Trump’s “bizarre and menacing” behavior, but he “utterly failed the test,” Krugman wrote.
During the CNN-hosted showdown, Biden appeared visibly confused, slurring his words and struggling to finish his sentences. While the White House blamed Biden’s poor performance on a cold and his busy travel schedule earlier in the month, some Democratic donors and liberal pundits have called on the 46th president to suspend his campaign. Some formerly friendly media outlets have also demanded that Biden step aside.
The 81-year-old has refused to withdraw from the race, admitting only that he does not debate “as well as [he] used to.” Speaking to MSNBC on Monday, Biden said he is “not going anywhere” and vowed to continue his reelection campaign, insisting he is “the best candidate to beat Donald Trump.”
A survey conducted by CBS News/YouGov in the wake of the presidential debate found that 72% of registered voters do not believe that Biden has the “mental and cognitive health necessary to serve as president.”