Dems' 'deeply self-destructive' attacks on Biden to blame for weakening his candidacy, lawmaker says

A House Democrat backing President Biden is blasting members of his own party for speaking out against Biden's 2024 candidacy in public, arguing it is putting the president in a worse position amid the fallout from the 81-year-old's disastrous debate performance last month.

Congress is back in session on Monday for the first time since the immediate fallout of Biden's debate performance, and it is expected to bring a heap of scrutiny on Democratic lawmakers.

Rep. Ritchie Torres, D-N.Y., who has signaled he is backing Biden, called his fellow Democrats out for the public disarray.

"Regardless of where one stands on the question of President Biden's political future, the intra-party mixed messaging strikes me as deeply self-destructive," Torres said Monday. "Those publicly calling on President Biden to withdraw should ask themselves a simple question: 'what if the President becomes the Democratic nominee?' The drip, drip, drip of public statements of no confidence only serve to weaken a president who has been weakened not only by the debate but also by the debate about the debate."

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"Weakening a weakened nominee seems like a losing strategy for a presidential election. The piling-on is not so much solving a problem as much as it is creating and compounding one. The process by which we decide how to move forward matters as much as the decision itself."

The debate has led to more intra-party fractures within the House Democratic caucus as members are split on calls for Biden to drop out of the race.

Over the past week, five House Democrats have publicly urged Biden to step aside ahead of his November rematch with former President