American media heavyweights tell president: it’s time to quit
Pressure mounts as the New York Times and some of Biden’s strongest backers join the call
Robert Tait in Washington
Sat 29 Jun 2024 15.07 EDT
Last modified on Sat 29 Jun 2024 21.30 EDT
Amid a howling chorus of derision over Joe Biden’s substandard debate performance against Donald Trump, one voice seemed to resonate more powerfully than others.
At 6.15pm on Friday – roughly 19 hours after the two presidential candidates left the stage in Atlanta the previous evening – the verdict of the New York Times’s editorial board dropped online to the newspaper’s subscribers.
The judgment was devastating. The US president, the board forcefully argued, had presented such an alarming spectacle of aged frailty that the best thing he could now do for the country he had served for more than half a century was to withdraw from the race and allow his Democratic party to choose another candidate.
The newspaper long venerated as “the old Grey Lady” of American journalism pointed out that Biden had presented himself as the figure best positioned to defeat the threat to democracy represented by Trump – and acknowledged that he had successfully done so in 2020.
“But the greatest public service Mr Biden can now perform is to announce that he will not continue to run for re-election,” it intoned.
“As it stands, the president is engaged in a reckless gamble. There are Democratic leaders better equipped to present clear, compelling and energetic alternatives to a second Trump presidency … It’s too big a bet to simply hope Americans will overlook or discount Mr Biden’s age and infirmity that they see with their own eyes.”American media heavyweights tell president: it’s time to quit
www.theguardian.com
Pressure mounts as the New York Times and some of Biden’s strongest backers join the call
Robert Tait in Washington
Sat 29 Jun 2024 15.07 EDT
Last modified on Sat 29 Jun 2024 21.30 EDT
Amid a howling chorus of derision over Joe Biden’s substandard debate performance against Donald Trump, one voice seemed to resonate more powerfully than others.
At 6.15pm on Friday – roughly 19 hours after the two presidential candidates left the stage in Atlanta the previous evening – the verdict of the New York Times’s editorial board dropped online to the newspaper’s subscribers.
The judgment was devastating. The US president, the board forcefully argued, had presented such an alarming spectacle of aged frailty that the best thing he could now do for the country he had served for more than half a century was to withdraw from the race and allow his Democratic party to choose another candidate.
The newspaper long venerated as “the old Grey Lady” of American journalism pointed out that Biden had presented himself as the figure best positioned to defeat the threat to democracy represented by Trump – and acknowledged that he had successfully done so in 2020.
“But the greatest public service Mr Biden can now perform is to announce that he will not continue to run for re-election,” it intoned.
“As it stands, the president is engaged in a reckless gamble. There are Democratic leaders better equipped to present clear, compelling and energetic alternatives to a second Trump presidency … It’s too big a bet to simply hope Americans will overlook or discount Mr Biden’s age and infirmity that they see with their own eyes.”American media heavyweights tell president: it’s time to quit
American media heavyweights tell president: it’s time to quit
Pressure mounts as the New York Times and some of Biden’s strongest backers join the call
www.theguardian.com
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