Rep. Mike Quigley, D-Ill., warned that President Biden did not assuage growing concerns about his fitness for office during his Friday ABC News interview, saying he looked “very frail” and was hurting Democrats by continuing to stay in the race.
“The polling is going in the opposite direction, and that’s what’s particularly concerning, and I can frankly see why. I don’t think it was a great interview. There were several things besides his very appearance that were concerning about what he said and how he said it. So I think we have to be honest with ourselves: the situation is not getting better. Frankly, it’s getting worse,” Quigley told CNN’s John Berman on Monday.
“Perceptions are absolutely ruling in things like this in a campaign. He looks very frail. His voice is very soft, it’s not robust,” he continued.
Quigley urged Biden to consider the impact staying in the race would have on downballot races.
“What I would stress to the president is that, ‘This isn’t just about you. It’s not about loyalty. It’s about being pragmatic.’ We have to be honest with ourselves,” he said.
Quigley joins a growing list of Democrats who’ve called on Biden to step down following his rocky debate performance on June 27. Several top House Democrats held a private meeting Sunday to talk about the state of the presidential race, with the consensus reportedly agreeing that it was time for the president to step down.
Quigley told CNN he expects more of his Democratic peers to come out and express similar concerns.
“It’s going to be an amazing, unfortunately, horrible week, but I do think the numbers will grow,” he told Berman. “I don’t know how the president will react to that.”
The congressman called it a “painful” and “horrible situation” for Democrats.
He also criticized the Biden campaign’s treatment of polls coming out of the debate.
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“I think frankly what hurts him, is the denial the president seems to have about how the polling was going,” Quigley said, before highlighting eyebrow-raising moments from the president’s ABC interview that sparked concerns from fellow Democrats.
Despite facing mounting calls to drop out of the race, Biden has remained steadfast in his commitment to stay in the race and compete again against his GOP rival, former President Trump.
Monday morning, Biden called into MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” to insist once more that he was staying in the race, telling the hosts he was “not going anywhere.”
A memo obtained by Fox News Digital, which was sent to Hill offices by the Biden-Harris campaign, touted the president’s efforts to rally supporters in several swing states since the CNN debate.
The memo also highlighted a new Bloomberg/Morning Consult poll out Saturday that shows Biden trailing Trump across seven battleground states by just two points and leading Trump in Michigan and Wisconsin by five and three points, respectively.
