The Biden campaign and Democrats are waking up to headlines calling into question President Joe Biden's (D) debate performance last evening. Dozens of headlines suggesting that the Democratic Party should elect a different nominee and criticizing the president's poor performance have only escalated the discussion surrounding his cognitive ability. During a livestream this morning, Florida Rep. Anna V. Eskamani (D) admitted that she would like to see Democrats nominate another candidate.
Rep. Eskamani shared that she was "incredibly, incredibly disappointed" with the debate. However, she lamented that she "wasn't surprised." "You have one candidate - Trump - that's just constantly lying, and no one's fact-checking him. He's just, like, on this tirade of lies. Then, you have President Biden. He is not in a position to respond quickly. He didn’t finish some of his sentences. I mean, it was really, really bad. I don’t think there’s any way to describe it," she added.
Rep. Eskamani did affirm that she would be voting for him come November while remaining critical, admitting that she has been "absolutely very aggressive in of course calling out the reality of our country where a lot of Americans want better options."
To address issues with "how fragile this democracy is" regarding issues like abortion rights, the economy, and other topics that were discussed last night, "it's clear to me who I will be voting for if these are my options, but obviously, especially as a younger person, I want more options."
Despite the support, Eskamani did note that she would like the Democratic Party to nominate another candidate, sharing that qualified candidates chose to sit out this election after President Biden announced his intention to run again.
"There are so many amazing people that would have run for president on the Democratic ticket if Biden did not run for reelection... a lot of phenomenal candidates just stayed on the sidelines, so the reality is that we have a lot of options to run on the Democratic ticket for president. I just don't know if the mechanics are there for someone else," she explained.
“Personally I would like to see someone else.”
