Barack Obama's Advisers Draw Knives Out for Biden: 'Gonna Be Discussions'

Joe Biden at the first presidential debate of 2024 in Atlanta. Three former advisors to Barack Obama have joined calls for Biden to step aside following his poor performance.

Following a disastrous first debate for President Joe Biden, three former advisers to Barack Obama have joined growing calls from Democrats for the president to step aside before the November election.

David Axelrod, who advised Obama from 2008 until 2012, described to CNN "a sense of shock" at seeing Biden's disoriented and panicked tone during Thursday night's debate in Atlanta.

"There are gonna be discussions about whether he should continue," Axelrod said.

Van Jones, a political analyst who advised Obama on environmental innovation and jobs in 2009, said Democrats should consider fielding a new candidate following Biden's poor performance, which he said caused him "pain" as well as "panic."

"I love that guy. That's a good man. He loves his country. He's doing the best that he can, but he had a test to meet tonight to restore the confidence of the country and of the base and he failed to do that," Jones said.

"I think there's a lot of people who are going to want to see him consider taking a different course now," he said. "We're still far from our convention and there is time for this party to figure out a different way forward if he will allow us to do that."

Ben Rhodes, who wrote speeches for Obama and advised him on national security from 2007 until 2017, wrote on X, formerly Twitter that "telling people they didn't see what they saw is not the way to respond to this," garnering over 2 million views. The tweet indicated that Biden's poor performance would be obvious to viewers and that it would not be a good spin strategy for Democrats to suggest that the president did well.

The three Obama-advisers join a growing voice among Democrats that Biden should step aside, with early polls and gambling odds suggesting that Thursday's debate performance significantly damaged his chances of winning the election in November.

Their criticisms are a particular blow to the incumbent president, considering the continuing influence former president Obama maintains over the Democratic Party.

The Democratic National Convention will take place in August, where Biden—unless he steps down—will be officially elected as the party's nominee for president to face off against Trump.

Trump is the presumptive nominee for the Republicans, with the party set to officially elect him as its candidate at its convention in July.

The Republican convention will occur just days after he is due to be sentenced in New York, where a jury found him guilty of 34 counts of falsifying business records relating to a hush money payment made to the adult film actress Stormy Daniels in an attempt to influence the 2016 presidential election. Trump still denies wrongdoing and is considering an appeal.

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