Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Texas, became the first elected Democrat to call on President Biden to withdraw from the 2024 presidential race, saying the president "failed" to defend his record and reassure voters that he's the man for the job during last week's debate.
Acknowledging Biden's accomplishments for his party, Doggett said in a Tuesday statement that "many Americans have indicated dissatisfaction with their choices in this election."
"President Biden has continued to run substantially behind Democratic senators in key states and in most polls has trailed Donald Trump. I had hoped that the debate would provide some momentum to change that. It did not. Instead of reassuring voters, the President failed to effectively defend his many accomplishments and expose Trump's many lies," Doggett said.
"Our overriding consideration must be who has the best hope of saving our democracy from an authoritarian takeover by a criminal and his gang," he continued. "Too much is at stake to risk a Trump victory — too great a risk to assume that what could not be turned around in a year, what was not turned around in the debate, can be turned around now."
"President Biden saved our democracy by delivering us from Trump in 2020. He must not deliver us to Trump in 2024," he added.
Amid his call for Biden to withdraw, Doggett reflected on the "painful" decision made by former President Lyndon Johnson not to seek re-election to the White House in 1968.
"I represent the heart of a congressional district once represented by Lyndon Johnson. Under very different circumstances, he made the painful decision to withdraw. President Biden should do the same," the Texas lawmaker said. "While much of his work has been transformational, he pledged to be transitional."
Doggett claimed the president "has the opportunity to encourage a new generation of leaders from whom a nominee can be chosen to unite our country through an open, democratic process."
"My decision to make these strong reservations public is not done lightly nor does it in any way diminish my respect for all that President Biden has achieved. Recognizing that, unlike Trump, President Biden's first commitment has always been to our country, not himself, I am hopeful that he will make the painful and difficult decision to withdraw. I respectfully call on him to do so," he concluded.
Doggett's remarks come less than a week after Biden's disastrous debate against former President Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee for the 2024 presidential election.
BIDEN TRIES TO FLIP THE SCRIPT ON NEGATIVE NARRATIVE COMING OUT OF DISASTROUS DEBATE WITH TRUMP
Speaking with a raspy voice and delivering rambling answers, Biden struggled during many portions of the debate. Several political analysts noted, however, that the president sharpened his answers as the debate progressed.
Biden's uneven and, at times, halting performance grabbed the vast majority of headlines from the debate and sparked a new round of calls from political pundits, publications and some Democrats for the president to step aside as the party's standard-bearer. Top Biden allies have pushed back against such talk as they defended the president and targeted Trump for "lying" throughout the debate.
Biden, on the day after his debate performance, aimed to address Democratic Party panic.
"I know I’m not a young man, to state the obvious," Biden, at 81 the oldest president in the nation's history, told cheering supporters at a Friday afternoon rally in the crucial battleground state of North Carolina.
"Folks, I don’t walk as easy as I used to. I don’t speak as smoothly as I used to. I don’t debate as well as I used to," Biden acknowledged. "But I know what I do know. I know how to tell the truth. I know right from wrong. And I know how to do this job. I know how to get things done. And I know, like millions of Americans know, when you get knocked down you get back up."
In a statement shared with Fox News Digital, National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) Communications Director Jack Pandol said, "The cowards in the Democratic Caucus have spent every day after the debate in witness protection, too afraid to say what they’re all thinking."
"Americans remember House Democrats were complicit in covering up and gaslighting the public about the president’s condition, and voters are primed to punish them in November," Pandol added.
Though it isn't immediately clear who Democrats would rally around as the party's nominee should Biden step aside, Rep. James Clyburn, a Democrat from South Carolina, said Tuesday that he "will support" Vice President Kamala Harris if Biden exits the race.
Moderate Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., is also reportedly set to break with Biden in the coming days, with the Washington Post calling the expected move "a high-profile defection that would underscore the president’s weakness."
Fox News' Paul Steinhauser contributed to this report.
