Daily Dose in the Pod: Why Does Biden Get to Decide if Biden Has What it Takes to Continue to Serve?

I know half of you hate that I’m asking this but in my view it has to be asked so here I am.

For a minute, don’t picture Joe. Picture the people you’ve known who have suffered from cognitive decline. Do you believe they would be in the best position to assess whether they’re in cognitive decline? No. Why not? Because they don’t know it’s happening. Or if they do sense that something has changed about themselves, they do not understand the extent of it. And whatever thought they’re having about it today may or may not be a thought that they can summon tomorrow.

Nancy Pelosi has said it’s a legitimate question as to whether what happened with Joe during the debate was a “condition” or an “episode.” We’ve heard other party leaders outright call for him to step down. We’ve heard anonymous sources from within the administration and his social circles say they not only are worried, but that they have been worried for some time.

So why is the question of whether the nation is run by a cognitively-impaired person to be decided by the potentially-cognitively-impaired person? If legitimate people in the President’s own party, allies even, are starting to speak up about whether he is fit now let alone fit to serve another four years, doesn’t the party, the administration, the family owe it to the Democrat party and America itself to step up and get Joe to step down?

We talk about Trump’s ego being such a concern. Now we’ve got Joe telling George Stephanopoulos, “I don’t think anybody’s more qualified to be President or to win this race than me,” despite being down 6 points in the polls. When Stephanopoulos said, “You’re behind in the popular vote,” Joe said, “I don’t buy that.”

It increasingly feels to me that Joe and the “Four More Years” crowd are gaslighting the rest of us. We all saw what we saw, and heard what we heard, and we’re continuing to hear it, and we wish it weren’t, but with basic rights and our outright democracy on the line, it sure is starting to look like the Democratic party and therefore the nation would be better off if Joe would step aside and let someone else lead us in this deeply consequential time.

xo

🤗 Here’s a hug for all the Democrats who are doing all they can to stop Trump and Project 2025.

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