Rep. Seth Moulton joined the ranks of two other House Democrats in calling for President Biden to bow out of the presidential race after his shaky performance at the Georgia debate last week.
“President Biden has done enormous service to our country, but now is the time for him to follow in one of our founding father, George Washington’s footsteps and step aside to let new leaders rise up and run against Donald Trump,” Mr. Moulton of Massachusetts said to Boston’s WBUR radio Thursday.
Mr. Moulton was noncommittal about what should happen next if Mr. Biden were to drop out.
“The exact mechanism that we should follow in order for other leaders to rise up, whether it’s some sort of primary process, whether it goes directly to Vice President [Kamala] Harris, I’m not sure about that, that’s yet to be determined,” he said. “And that’s in many ways the substance of the deep, honest conversations that Democrats are having behind the scenes now and over the course of the past week.”
Mr. Moulton, who ran for the 2020 presidential nomination, had released a statement Wednesday that said the Democratic Party should “have all viable options on the table.”
“I deeply respect President Biden and all the great things he has for America, but I have grave concerns about his ability to defeat Donald Trump,” he said in his statement Wednesday on X.
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Other House Democrats that have called on Mr. Biden to drop out have been Reps. Lloyd Doggett of Texas and Raul Grijalva of Arizona.
But the White House and the Biden campaign have been adamant that Mr. Biden is staying the course and will be on the ticket in November.
“No one is pushing me out. I’m not leaving. I’m in this race to the end and we’re going to win,” the president said Wednesday during a Zoom call.
Unless Mr. Biden steps aside voluntarily, there is no way under the Democratic Party rules to deny him the nomination. The president won almost all the delegates in the Democratic presidential primary and those delegates are pledged to vote for him at the nominating convention unless he “releases” them.
• Mallory Wilson can be reached at mwilson@washingtontimes.com.
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