Democratic Washington Rep. Adam Smith blasted President Joe Biden’s campaign team Friday evening for “political malpractice” by allowing the president to continue his reelection bid despite mental fitness concerns.
Smith appeared on CNN’s “Anderson Cooper 360” to discuss his public stance on calling for Biden to withdraw from the 2024 presidential race. During his interview with host Anderson Cooper, Smith began to agree that more Democrats will be joining in calling for Biden to step aside, before calling out Biden’s campaign team.
“What we are witnessing here is the second greatest act of political malpractice from the Biden campaign team, that I think this country has ever witnessed. Admittedly the greatest act was the Republican Party rallying around Donald Trump after January 6. But look, leading up to the debate there were concerns about the president. The debate was catastrophic and it hasn‘t gotten better since,” Smith said.
“Look, we got a great message. Joe Biden‘s done a great job as president. What‘s clear now, he is not the person who can deliver that message and he will be dogged by questions about his health,” Smith continued. “Look, you saw the speech that Donald Trump gave last night. Let‘s go after that and Joe Biden was not capable of doing that debate.
Smith continued to note how the discussion over potentially replacing Biden has put “pressure” on other Democratic campaigns across the country and added it was “time for the president to step aside.” Cooper then pushed back on the Democratic lawmaker, asking for him to clarify if he believed there was “malpractice” either prior to the debate or after.
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“I don’t know that for sure. I wasn‘t around him. They were around him. What I do know for sure is the second Joe Biden walked off that debate stage it was obvious to everybody that at that point he was no longer the capable candidate that we needed to run,” Smith said.
“And since then rather than having an honest conversation within the Democratic family about the best step forward, [the] campaign dug in and they said there‘s no problem you know, they ignored it, they didn‘t deal with it,” Smith continued. “They continue to press forward even as so much pressure is building to choose a different nominee. Look polls show somewhere between 55 and 70% of Democrats think that the president should step aside at this point. At this point in the campaign you just can‘t survive that.”
The Democratic began to echo their concern over Biden following his poor debate performance against former President Donald Trump in late June, as Biden could notably be seen struggling to finish his statements and at one point freezing mid-statement.
A post-debate CBS/YouGov poll found 72% of Americans no longer believe Biden has the mental and cognitive health to serve in office, jumping seven points from their last survey in early June.
Since the event, calls for Biden to step aside have flooded the president’s team, with over a dozen congressional Democrats and a handful of Democrats senators vocalizing their dissatisfaction with having Biden remain as the nominee. Democratic Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown became the third senator to join the list Friday, releasing a statement online saying, ” I think the President should end his campaign.”
However, despite the calls Biden and his team have remained firm in continuing with his reelection campaign.
