‘Panic mode’ Democrats begin calling for Biden to step aside after ‘horrible’ debate performance against Trump

Ahead of the first presidential debate in Atlanta, Democrats had one piece of advice for President Joe Biden: Be yourself.

Former House speaker Nancy Pelosi said it. Representative Lisa Blunt Rochester, who is running for Senate in Biden’s home state of Delaware said it. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez told The Independent that people should ask what former president Donald Trump needed to do to have “half a chance” at sounding “barely cogent.”

But Democrats began to sound the alarm after Biden’s performance in Atlanta on Thursday evening.

Throughout the night, Biden interrupted himself, his voice hoarse and strained. It served as a bleak reminder to everyone that Democrats had nominated not only the oldest presidential nominee in history, but someone whom the public has regularly seen stumble over his words and whose fading memory came under greater scrutiny in a special counsel report.

Biden has consistently trailed Trump in the polls, with many voters citing his advanced age as a reason he should not run again. Challenging Trump to a debate and throwing out the normal debate schedule in the garbage was meant to come from a position of strength, showing Biden could handle the job and he could take the fight directly to Trump.

Instead, voters saw a Biden seemed to confirm their worst fears as soon as he began his opening remarks.

“Any Democrat who is not in panic mode is the stupidest person in America right now,” Patrick Murray, the director of Monmouth University’s polling, posted on X.

At one point, after Biden meandered throughout an answer about immigration, Trump said “I really don’t know what he said at the end of that sentence – and I don’t think he knows what he said either.”

Even Vice President