Senator Raphael Warnock (D., Ga.) on Sunday joined a number of other Democrats in publicly defending President Biden’s reelection bid in the wake of his disastrous debate performance last week.
Asked during an appearance on NBC’s Meet the Press whether Biden should drop out, the Georgia Democrat said, “Absolutely not.”
As a pastor, Warnock said, “I can tell you that there have been more than a few Sundays when I wish I had preached a better sermon.”
“But after the sermon was over, it was my job to embody the message, to show up for the people that I serve,” he added. “And that’s what Joe Biden has been doing his entire life, his entire life of public service, and over the last four years, he has been showing up for the American people.”
Warnock’s defense comes the same day that the editorial board of Georgia’s largest newspaper, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, published an editorial calling on Biden to exit the race. The New York Times editorial board published a similar call-to-action on Friday.
But Warnock argued, “We’ve had a primary. It is our job to demonstrate that the world is watching and our children are counting on us to get this right.”
The senator, meanwhile, chose to attack Donald Trump’s debate performance, suggesting the former president spent the debate “trash talking the whole country.”
“The question this morning is not, ‘what is Joe Biden going to do?’ The question is, who has Donald Trump ever showed up for other than himself and people like himself? I’m with Joe Biden, and it’s our assignment to make sure that he gets over the finish line come November, not for his sake, but for the country’s sake,” Warnock said.
But according to a new CBS News poll, it was Biden’s debate performance that was viewed unfavorably among voters, with just 18 percent of voters saying Biden inspired confidence, compared to 44 percent who said the same of former president Donald Trump. Just 21 percent of voters said Biden presented his ideas clearly, while 47 percent said the same of Trump.