Several New York Times writers have come out urging President Biden to drop out of the 2024 race since the debate.
Alhtough the Time’s editorial board already called on Biden to "leave the race" shortly after his first presidential debate with Donald Trump, other writers recently offered their own calls for Biden to be replaced.
Liberal Times columnist Thomas Friedman topped NYT’s opinion page on Tuesday with his latest piece, "President Biden: Teach Them How to Say Goodbye." In the article, he suggested Biden step down because it is "what Trump fears most right now."
"He fears that Biden will demonstrate the difference between a leader and a party who put the country first and a leader and a party who put themselves first, namely Trump and the Republicans who enable him despite knowing how many of Trump’s former advisers say he is unfit for office, despite knowing that Trump tried to overturn the last election, despite knowing that Trump has articulated no real plan for the country’s future other than ‘retribution’ against all who crossed him and his followers," Friedman wrote.
This followed Friedman’s piece shortly after the debate titled, "Joe Biden Is a Good Man and a Good President. He Must Bow Out of the Race."
"I watched the Biden-Trump debate alone in a Lisbon hotel room, and it made me weep. I cannot remember a more heartbreaking moment in American presidential campaign politics in my lifetime — precisely because of what it revealed: Joe Biden, a good man and a good president, has no business running for re-election," Friedman wrote last week.
Though Friedman had the most recently published story on the topic, three others on the opinion page joined him in asking Biden to step out of the race over the last few days.
Times columnist Michelle Goldberg, who said Biden was "too old" to run again in 2022, called on the Democratic Party to at least consider the idea of replacing Biden instead of "resigning ourselves to our current disastrous trajectory."
"Finding a Biden alternative would be risky and messy, and there’s no guarantee that it would work better than trying to put on a brave face and drag the current president across the finish line. But the Democratic Party’s leaders — the people, let’s remember, who got us into this mess — have no right to condescend to those trying to find a way out," Goldberg wrote.
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NY TIMES EDITORIAL BOARD MEMBER DEFENDS CALL FOR PRESIDENT TO DROP OUT: 'NOT THE SAME JOE BIDEN'
Fellow Times columnist Pamela Paul implored Biden to step out of the race as a moral decision since he is "no longer the man" to stop Trump.
"Almost everyone agrees that, above all, Biden is a good man. But in refusing to do the right thing and drop out of this race in favor of an open contest, he is not being a good man right now," Paul wrote.
She added, "Give us the opportunity to thank you for your service and bid you goodbye while you still stand on high ground."
Guest essayist Kevin Boyle, a history professor, compared Biden’s situation to President Lyndon B. Johnson, who famously announced that he would not seek re-election after his first term. Boyle claimed that Biden, like Johnson in 1968, similarly faces an "existential threat to the nation."
"What Mr. Biden shouldn’t do is see that concession as a sign of weakness or defeat but rather as an opportunity to do as Johnson had done in another intensely dangerous time: to go before the American people to say that he will not accept his party’s nomination and, with that admittedly wrenching and profoundly courageous act, stand in defense of the nation he has sworn to protect and preserve," Boyle wrote.
The New York Times editorial board was notably one of the earliest high-profile publications to call for Biden to drop out, claiming that continuing his bid would be a "reckless gamble."
"The clearest path for Democrats to defeat a candidate defined by his lies is to deal truthfully with the American public: acknowledge that Mr. Biden can’t continue his race, and create a process to select someone more capable to stand in his place to defeat Mr. Trump in November," the editorial board wrote on Friday.