{"id":29454,"date":"2024-07-10T03:55:40","date_gmt":"2024-07-10T08:55:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=29454"},"modified":"2024-07-10T03:55:44","modified_gmt":"2024-07-10T08:55:44","slug":"michael-bennet-becomes-first-senate-democrat-to-publicly-warn-that-biden-cant-beat-trump","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=29454","title":{"rendered":"Michael Bennet becomes first Senate Democrat to publicly warn that Biden can’t beat Trump"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

WASHINGTON \u2014 Sen. Michael Bennet of Colorado on Tuesday night became the first Senate Democrat to publicly say President Joe Biden can\u2019t win the election<\/a>, he but stopped short of calling for him to withdraw from the race<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In an appearance on CNN, Bennet was asked whether he and Sens. Jon Tester, D-Mont., and Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, had told their colleagues during a private meeting on Capitol Hill that Biden can\u2019t defeat former President Donald Trump in the fall. He confirmed that he had made those remarks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWell, it\u2019s true that I said that, and I did say that behind closed doors. And you guys and others asked whether I had said it, and that is what I said. So I figured I should come here and say it publicly,\u201d said Bennet, who ran against Biden in the 2020 presidential primary campaign.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bennet, who is in his third term, raised concerns about polling that has found Trump leading Biden less than four months before Election Day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDonald Trump is on track, I think, to win this election and maybe win it by a landslide and take with him the Senate and the House,\u201d Bennet said. \u201cSo for me, this isn\u2019t a question about polling, it\u2019s not a question of politics. It\u2019s a moral question about the future of our country, and I think it\u2019s critically important for us to come to grips with what we face if, together, we put this country on the path of electing Donald Trump again.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In response to Bennet’s remarks, Biden campaign spokesman Kevin Munoz said Biden isn\u2019t throwing in the towel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNo one is more committed to defeating Donald Trump and defending our democracy than Joe Biden, and few know better than Joe Biden the importance of showing up and campaigning to earn the support of voters,\u201d Munoz said in a statement. \u201cThis was always going to be a close race \u2014 and the dynamics at play are the ones we\u2019ve long anticipated: voters continue to be deeply concerned by Donald Trump and his harmful agenda, and the more we engage and reach out to voters, the more they support President Biden.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere are a lot of days between now and election day, and the hard work of earning every single vote is far from over.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In conference calls and a public letter to Democratic lawmakers, Biden has been defiant, insisting that he is the party\u2019s nominee and that he won\u2019t be forced out of the race.Still, Bennet\u2019s comments are a blow to the campaign, which has been aggressively trying to limit Democratic defections<\/a> and shore up support on Capitol Hill in the wake of Biden’s debate debacle on June 27. And his remarks may create an opening for other skeptical or vulnerable Democrats to follow Bennet\u2019s lead in speaking out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Most Democrats leaving Tuesday\u2019s private lunch were tight-lipped, describing the discussion only as \u201cconstructive.\u201d But a source said that Bennet, Brown and Tester all raised concerns that Biden wouldn’t win the election. Another source said those concerns were voiced individually \u2014 not as a group. The concerns were first reported by CNN.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Brown and Tester face tough re-election bids this fall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Brown said he doesn\u2019t talk about private meetings, adding, \u201cI have very legitimate questions about this.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As he was leaving the Capitol, Tester didn\u2019t deny the report about his remarks, and he didn\u2019t comment on the matter to reporters. In a statement later Tuesday, he said: \u201cPresident Biden\u2019s bad debate performance raised serious questions about whether he\u2019s up [to] the job for the next four years. As I have said, he needs to prove to the American people, and me, that he can do it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In his CNN appearance, Bennet said no Democrat in the closed-door lunch called on Biden to withdraw, and he also wouldn\u2019t go that far.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI can understand how hard it would be if I were Joe Biden to sit there and to say to myself, after all I\u2019ve worked for, after all I\u2019ve accomplished, after all the extraordinary public service I\u2019ve given to the American people \u2014 which we should honor, because it has been extraordinary, one of the greatest leaders to be in that office, certainly in recent times \u2014 and who has accomplished so much, it would be so hard to acknowledge that after all of that, you\u2019re in the race of your lifetime with somebody you can\u2019t beat,\u201d Bennet said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think that\u2019s probably really hard for him to acknowledge. I think it\u2019s really hard for the people that are working for him to acknowledge.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nbcnews<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON \u2014 Sen. Michael Bennet of Colorado on Tuesday night became the first Senate Democrat to publicly say President Joe Biden can\u2019t win the election, he but stopped short of calling for him to withdraw from the race. In an appearance on CNN, Bennet was asked whether he and Sens. Jon Tester, D-Mont., and Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":29455,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[1637,10463,29563,29564,3506],"class_list":["post-29454","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics","tag-campaign","tag-joe-biden","tag-michael-benet","tag-senate-democrats","tag-senator"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29454","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=29454"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29454\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29456,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29454\/revisions\/29456"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/29455"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=29454"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=29454"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=29454"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}