- Former Democratic Rep. Harold Ford Jr. said Friday that the party was going to have “serious doubts going forward” about President Joe Biden being the nominee.
- Ford said Biden had a “tough night” after the release of special counsel Robert Hur’s classified documents report and the president’s subsequent gaffe on “Mexico.”
- “This last night will be the closing announcement of a campaign against the president as we get to November,” Ford said.
Former Democratic Rep. Harold Ford Jr. said Friday that the party was going to have “serious doubts going forward” about President Joe Biden’s ability to be the 2024 presidential nominee after a “difficult night.”
On Thursday, Biden’s re-election prospects were shaken by the release of special counsel Robert Hur’s classified documents report, which referenced the president’s “diminished faculties” and said a jury would find him “a sympathetic elderly man, well intentional and with a bad memory”. ‘
The 81-year-old president rubbed salt in the wound during a news conference about the report, saying Egypt’s president was from “Mexico.”
“The president lost his fastball,” Ford said. I think last night President Biden, even in that interview, even in that press conference there, he demonstrated to many Americans what Mr. Hur wrote.”
Ford suggested it could do a lot to hurt Biden politically.
“This last night will be the closing announcement of a campaign against the president as we get to November,” Ford said on Fox & Friends. “The question is whether Democrats are willing to move forward between now and November with a candidate who many in the country may believe will not be up to the job for four more years.”
Former Democratic Rep. Harold Ford Jr. said Friday that the party was going to have “serious doubts going forward” about President Joe Biden’s ability to be the 2024 presidential nominee after a “difficult night.”
Ford indicated to Fox & Friends’ Brian Kilmeade that he believed Thursday possibly changed the trajectory of the 2024 race.
“I’ll answer it this way: If you asked me this question two or three days ago, the answer was that it’s very unlikely that anyone else could be the nominee,” Ford said. “I think after last night, I think that question needs to be answered more directly and thoughtfully.”
“And as of now, I think Democrats are going to have to deal with this for the next few weeks and months,” he continued.
“And there are few elders in the party who maybe can have this conversation and we’ll see if they do,” the former lawmaker and Fox News contributor added.
With self-help guru Marianne Williamson out of the race, only one Democrat, Minnesota Rep. Dean Phillips, has been challenging Biden for the Democratic nomination.
Support for Phillips, so far, has topped just 19 percent and in New Hampshire, a state where the president did not appear on the ballot because Democrats rearranged their presidential primaries.
Phillips launched his campaign in October over concerns about Biden’s advanced age.
President Joe Biden addressed reporters Thursday night after the release of special counsel Robert Hur’s blockbuster report on classified documents, which questioned whether the president was suffering from memory lapses.
The 55-year-old congressman had tried for months to recruit a better-known name for Biden’s primary, but the effort failed, forcing Phillips to do it himself.
He pointed to polls showing Americans were wary of giving the incumbent four more years and polls showing Biden lost to former President Donald Trump.
Phillips said Thursday that the special counsel’s report “practically handed” the election to Trump.
“The report simply affirms what most Americans already know, that the president cannot continue to serve as our Commander in Chief beyond his term which ends on January 20, 2025,” Phillips said in a statement to DailyMail. com.
The president’s allies have tried a variety of defenses in the past 24 hours, with some pointing to the fact that Hur was a Trump appointee, while White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre noted Friday that Biden He has made naming mistakes his entire career.