Biden tries to downplay debate fallout with North Carolina campaign stop as Trump heads to Virginia for rally: Follow US politics live updates

An exclusive poll for DailyMail.com found that a clear majority of independent voters believe President Joe Biden should no longer be the Democratic nominee after a contentious debate with Donald Trump.

About 62 percent said it should be removed from the list.

Biden looked 81 on Thursday night as he repeatedly lost his train of thought and lapsed into silence.

Democrats are known for wetting the bed before elections, but panic has skyrocketed to another level following President Biden’s embarrassing performance at the Atlanta debate.

The president’s botched response and pause just minutes into the debate drew a gasp from some observers and set off a flurry of frantic alarmed text messages.

Some even took to social media to publicly express their concerns.

“Obviously that debate was a disaster. We have to beat Donald Trump. We have to have a candidate who can do that,” former Obama speechwriter Jon Favreau wrote in X.

“It’s kind of a DEFCON 1 moment,” Obama’s 2008 campaign manager David Plouffe said on MSNBC after the debate. He added that what really matters is how voters react.

Politico reported that some Biden advisers found the performance so troubling that they spent the night updating their LinkedIn profiles.

Top House Democrat Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., gave a resounding “no” when asked by reporters whether Biden should step down from the top of the ticket after his performance in last night’s debate.

Meanwhile, Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said Democrats on Capitol Hill are “in full five-alarm mode.”

“They are very worried. They are saying the quiet parts out loud.”

The Biden campaign suffered devastating television commentary in the minutes after the presidential debate ended Thursday night, and the hits continued to come Friday morning as Americans woke up to digest the news.

“A lot of people needed a drink after last night,” CBS This Morning host Gayle King said at the beginning of her broadcast.

“I had a job to do last night, Bob. Just one, really,” he told correspondent Robert Costa with obvious frustration when Costa reported that there was no organized Democratic pressure to get Biden to drop the nomination despite his shaky performance.

Sarah Ewall-Wice, US Senior Political Reporter

President Biden and Donald Trump hit the campaign trail to rally their supporters a day after their face-to-face on the debate stage in Atlanta.

Biden headed to Raleigh, North Carolina, on Thursday night for a campaign rally on Friday afternoon. He will be joined there by first lady Jill Biden.

The Biden campaign sees North Carolina as a swing state that could possibly flip Democratic in November.

Trump is scheduled to give a speech Friday afternoon in Chesapeake, Virginia, near Virginia Beach.

He lost Virginia to Democrats in both 2016 and 2020, but the state elected a Republican governor in 2021. Trump’s team sees the state up for grabs in November.

The former president will be accompanied at his event by Republican Governor Glenn Youngkin.

By Geoff Earle, Deputy US Political Editor in Atlanta

Telegenic Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro took to the airwaves hours after Joe Biden’s debate fiasco to tell members of his party to “stop worrying” and rally behind the presumptive nominee.

Shapiro, 51, emerged as a Biden campaign surrogate after key Democratic operatives hit the panic button following the president’s faltering performance, and influential columnist Tom Friedman called Biden’s performance “heartbreaking” and said, ” “he had no reason to run for re-election.”

“I would say to all those people who are worried right now, get to work and stop worrying,” she told CNN. She acknowledged that Biden had a “bad night” and said the campaign needed a “sharper message.”

“It’s not easy to debate a pathological liar,” he said. He then blamed the debate hosts after Biden faltered and lost his train of thought in many of his answers, looking down at times as Trump criticized his record and, according to fact-checkers, made multiple statements. false. “I think CNN could have done a better job of exposing those lies,” he said.

New York Democratic Rep. Ritchie Torres was not impressed with the performance of either candidate last night.

The first presidential debate of 2024 was full of extraordinary moments.

From the beginning, President Biden’s advanced age was on display after he froze mid-sentence just 12 minutes later. He also cleared his throat repeatedly due to a cold.

That was just the beginning of his gaffes and mumblings throughout the debate that have sent Democrats into full-blown panic mode, leading some to say Biden should be replaced at the top of the 2024 ticket.

Almost all Democratic and Republican political pundits agreed on who clearly ended up winning at the end of the night. DailyMail.com breaks down the analysis of the top political minds: