Biden faces growing pressure to quit race as Democrats question fitness

United States President Joe Biden is facing growing pressure from within his party to prove he is physically and mentally fit for office, with a Democratic lawmaker publicly calling on him to end his re-election bid for the first time.

Biden’s candidacy has been under a cloud since a disastrous debate performance against Republican challenger Donald Trump that saw the 81-year-old Democrat stumble over his words and lose his train of thought.

On Tuesday, Lloyd Doggett, a House Representative from Texas, became the first member of his party to publicly call on Biden to quit the race.

“I represent the heart of a congressional district once represented by Lyndon Johnson. Under very different circumstances, he made the painful decision to withdraw,” Doggett said in his statement.

“President Biden should do the same.”

Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, a House Representative for Washington state, stopped short of calling on Biden to withdraw, but said she believed Thursday’s debate performance would cost him the election in November.

“We all saw what we saw, you can’t undo that, and the truth, I think, is that Biden is going to lose to Trump. I know that’s difficult, but I think the damage has been done by that debate,” Perez said in an interview with the KATU news channel in Portland, Oregon.

Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Representative Jim Clyburn also added their voices to those scrutinizing Biden’s condition, saying it was legitimate to raise concerns about his health following the debate.

While Democratic insiders have been privately raising concerns about Biden’s fitness with media outlets for days, the series of public comments intensifies pressure on the president to assuage growing doubts about his electability.

During a fundraising event later on Tuesday, Biden blamed his poor performance on back-to-back trips to France and Italy, although he spent the week leading up to the debate behind closed doors at presidential retreat Camp David.