Young Dems blame Biden and their own party for losing in 2024 as they distance themselves from the old-guard
The Democratic Party is finally saying the quiet part out loud: "Biden should not have run again."
Revelations about President Joe Biden's cognitive decline and his administration's alleged cover-up have returned to the national conversation ahead of next week's release of CNN anchor Jake Tapper and Axios political correspondent Alex Thompson's book, "Original Sin: President Biden's Decline, Its Cover-Up, and His Disastrous Choice to Run Again."
Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., a 2024 presidential campaign surrogate for President Joe Biden, and considered a potential 2028 presidential candidate, acknowledged on Wednesday that Biden should not have run for a second term.
And Beto O'Rourke, one of Biden's 2020 Democratic primary competitors and the former congressman from Texas, joined the criticism this week, accusing Biden's re-election campaign of failing future generations of Americans.
Rep Ro Khanna Tees Up 2028 Rivalry During Pointed Speech In Jd Vance's Home State
When pressed by Martha MacCallum on "The Story" on Wednesday about campaigning for Biden in 2024, Khanna said he hadn't had the full picture of Biden's health and mental acuity ahead of his disastrous debate performance, but he admitted, "We should be honest as a party that we made a mistake."
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"I do think it's important that, given what has come out, that we take accountability," Khanna said. "Obviously, he should not have run," Khanna said.
Responding to a series of interview clips from early 2024, when Khanna affirmed Biden's intention to run for re-election and described the president as "fully coherent," Khanna said he had been telling the truth.
"Of course, I didn't have the full picture," Khanna added.
O'Rourke took Khanna's call for Democratic accountability a step further on "Pod Save America" this week, calling Biden's decision to run for re-election in 2024 a "terrible mistake."
"Just to be clear: Biden should not have run again. And to be even more clear: He failed this country in the most important job that he had," O'Rourke said.
"In fact, the entire rationale for his presidency the first time, and the rationale he tried to sell us on for his attempt to run for re-election, 'Only I can stop Donald Trump.' And he failed to do that, and it's not just you and me, but our kids and grandkids and the generations that follow that might have to pay the price for this. We might very well lose the greatest country that this world has ever known," O'Rourke said.
An excerpt from Tapper and Thompson's book released by Axios this week revealed that Biden's declining health was "so severe that there were internal discussions about putting the president in a wheelchair, but they couldn't do so until after the election."
In hindsight, Khanna and O'Rourke agreed that Democrats should have had an opportunity to launch their own presidential bids. And now that President Donald Trump has returned to the White House, and an already crowded field of potential 2028 Democratic candidates are mulling presidential campaigns, they said it's important to take accountability for 2024.
"Obviously, there should have been an open primary. And, I don't think that's very difficult that Democrats should just be straight up that he should not have run, now that we have all the facts. There should have been an open primary. I think to move on and move forward, it's important to take accountability and be straightforward with the American people," Khanna said.
O'Rourke said America's future could be in the balance "in part because of the decision that Biden, and those around him, made to run for re-election instead of having an open primary where the greatest talent that the Democratic Party can muster could be on that stage to have a competition of ideas, and track-record and vision and really excite, not just Democrats, but the people of this country who did want change. I mean, if anything was clear coming out of 2024, they wanted change."
The once-2020 Democratic presidential candidate, who is 52 years-old, said the Democrat's Biden failure creates a credibility problem.
"I think that credibility problem is going to persist up until when Democrats say, 'We f---ed up, and we made a terrible mistake,'" O'Rourke said.
Despite O'Rourke's comments this week, he said in an email to supporters through his voting rights organization, Powered by People, last February that, "Donald Trump is the single greatest threat to our democracy. Our best chance to defeat him is to support Joe Biden in this election."
"Amy and I voted for him in the Texas primary . . . and are looking forward to voting for him again in November," he added. "This president has done an extraordinary job of improving our economy, confronting the climate crisis, reducing childhood poverty and fending off the very worst of Donald Trump and the Republican Party's mounting attacks on our most fundamental freedoms."
Another young Democrat and Biden's former National Security Advisor, Jake Sullivan, continued to defend his former boss at Politico's Security Summit on Thursday, dismissing an allegation that Biden had forgotten his name, and defending his leadership as commander-in-chief.
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"What happened in that debate was a shock to me," Sullivan admitted. "I think it was a shock to everybody."
A Biden spokesperson did not immediately respond to Fox News Digital's request for comment.
Fox News Digital's Paul Steinhauser contributed to this report. Original article source: Young Dems blame Biden and their own party for losing in 2024 as they distance themselves from the old-guard
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He became a high-profile surrogate for Joe Biden's re-election campaign and took to Fox News for high-profile debates with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who was at the time running for the Republican presidential nomination, in December 2023. After Trump's re-election last November, Newsom made a noticeable tack to the political centre. He expressed new discomfort with transgender athletes in women's sports, called for curtailing health benefits for undocumented workers, and hosted conservative guests like former White House senior adviser Steve Bannon on his political podcast – provoking the ire of some in the Democratic Party. In January 2024, he toured the devastating fire damage in a Los Angeles suburb with Trump and pledged to work with the new Republican administration in recovery efforts. The Los Angeles protests have brought a sudden and decisive end to that detente, as the two men square off across a deep political divide. Trump has frequently benefitted from having a political foil with which to contrast himself – whether it was Hillary Clinton in 2016, Nancy Pelosi in the latter years of his first presidential term or Joe Biden during his drive back to power. While there are risks for Newsom in this fight – suspension of federal aid to California and the threat of arrest being just two notable ones – it is also a clash he seems more than willing to embrace. Hundreds arrested as calm returns to Los Angeles 'Un-American' or 'necessary'? Voters divided on Trump's LA protest crackdown Watch: 'It's important' - LA protesters on why they're taking to the streets
