Senator Michael Bennet became the first Senate Democrat to go public with his concerns about Joe Biden on Tuesday, saying that he doesn’t believe the president can beat Donald Trump in November.
“Donald Trump is on track, I think, to win this election ― and maybe win it by a landslide ― and take with it the Senate and the House,” Bennet told CNN’s Kaitlan Collins.
“I have not seen anything remotely approaching the kind of plan we need to see out of the White House that can demonstrate that he can actually beat Donald Trump,” he said.
The race, Bennet added, is “not going to be about the accomplishments that we all had three and four years ago. It’s going to be what the future of this country is going to be.”
Asked whether he believed Biden should step aside for a younger candidate to lead his party, Bennet didn’t directly answer. But by saying Biden, 81, should step aside, he became the Senate Democrat who’s come closest to calling for the president to drop out — even though others have reportedly expressed private doubts about Biden’s ability to win in November.
A closed-door meeting between Senate Democrats earlier on Tuesday yielded no consensus on whether to stick with Biden. Some senators expressed support for the president, while others stayed quiet and avoided questions from the press. Sensators Jon Tester and Sherrod Brown reportedly joined Bennet in expressing concerns about Biden’s ability to win during the meeting.
During his interview on CNN, Bennet said he has heard from constituents worried about Biden’s fitness.
“These are my voters who said to me, ‘I have been through this with my mom,’ ‘I have been through this with my dad.’ I’m terrified what it would mean if Donald Trump is reelected in this country,” Bennet said.
“We have a moral obligation to the people we represent,” he added.
Biden’s campaign responded to Bennet’s comments by pointing to statements other Democrats have made in support of the president.
“No one is more committed to defeating Donald Trump and defending our democracy than Joe Biden, and few know better than Joe Biden the importance of showing up and campaigning to earn the support of voters,” Biden campaign spokesman Kevin Munoz said in a statement to HuffPost.
“This was always going to be a close race — and the dynamics at play are the ones we’ve long anticipated: voters continue to be deeply concerned by Donald Trump and his harmful agenda, and the more we engage and reach out to voters, the more they support President Biden. There are a lot of days between now and election day, and the hard work of earning every single vote is far from over.”