The Vermont senator, whom President Biden defeated in the 2020 Democratic primary, vouched for the president in a guest essay in The New York Times.
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Senator Bernie Sanders, independent of Vermont, with President Biden at the Oval Office in April.
Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, the progressive leader who was President Biden’s chief rival for the Democratic nomination in 2020, urged skittish Democrats on Saturday to rally around the embattled president in a guest essay in The New York Times.
Mr. Sanders wrote that despite his policy disagreements with the president, Mr. Biden still gave Democrats the best chance of defeating former President Donald J. Trump in the November election.
He contended that Mr. Biden’s calamitous debate performance on June 27 was not the deal-breaker that some politicians and pundits have said it was as they have called for Mr. Biden to step aside as the presumptive Democratic nominee.
“Yes. I know: Mr. Biden is old, is prone to gaffes, walks stiffly and had a disastrous debate with Mr. Trump,” Mr. Sanders wrote. “But this I also know: A presidential election is not an entertainment contest. It does not begin or end with a 90-minute debate.”
Mr. Sanders, 82, an independent who caucuses with Democrats and a onetime colleague of Mr. Biden, said the party needed to put an end to the back-and-forth over Mr. Biden’s flaws as a candidate, describing the infighting as a “circular firing squad.”
“Enough!” he wrote. “Mr. Biden may not be the ideal candidate, but he will be the candidate and should be the candidate. And with an effective campaign that speaks to the needs of working families, he will not only defeat Mr. Trump but beat him badly. It’s time for Democrats to stop the bickering and nit-picking.”
At least 19 Democrats in the House and one in the Senate have called on Mr. Biden to end his campaign since the debate, arguing that he cannot recover from his troubling performance and could cost the party both chambers of Congress in November.
Many of those skeptics represent swing districts and are facing tough re-election campaigns.
Mr. Sanders, who is seeking a fourth term in the Senate, is part of a group of prominent progressives in Congress who have rallied around Mr. Biden as the president fights to stay in the race.
The group includes Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Ilhan Omar of Minnesota and Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts.
Neil Vigdor covers politics for The Times, focusing on voting rights issues and election disinformation. More about Neil Vigdor
See more on: U.S. Politics, 2024 Elections, Democratic Party, U.S. Senate, The New York Times, Bernard Sanders
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Source: nytimes.com
