Former Missouri Democrat Sen. Claire McCaskill says her party is "confronting a crisis" following President Joe Biden's widely panned effort in his debate with former President Donald Trump.
McCaskill, while appearing on left-wing MSNBC following Thursday night's debate, offered her assessment of the 81-year-old Biden's debate performance.
"Joe Biden had one thing he had to do tonight, and he didn't do it. He had one thing he had to accomplish and that was reassure America that he was up to the job at his age, and he failed at that tonight," McCaskill told the network's progressive host Rachel Maddow.
"You have to ask, 'How did we get here? How did we get to the point that we're spending a whole lot of time talking about the vice president tonight instead of talking about the president?' And I don't know how the rest of this story is written. I don't know if things can be done to fix this. They might."
McCaskill attempted to answer her own questions by taking a swipe at Trump before returning to the primary issue her party now faces.
"Trump is so terrible that this might heal itself but based on what I'm hearing from a lot of people, and some of them are people that are in high-elected offices in this country, and you might guess where they serve, there is a lot of … more than hand-wringing tonight," McCaskill said. "I do feel like that we are confronting a crisis."
The former senator anticipated panicky Democrats and Biden donors "blowing up" her phone after the debate.
"Does that mean that Joe Biden is not going to be the candidate? I don't know that," she said.
"I think we'll know a lot more in a few weeks how this plays out, how the polling plays out, but I think a couple of things are playing out right now. I'm not the only one whose heart is breaking right now. There's a lot of people who watched this tonight and felt terribly for Joe Biden."
Maddow asked McCaskill what could and should be done.
"Listen, nobody is a bigger fan of [Vice President] Kamala Harris than I am, and [California Gov.] Gavin Newsom did a remarkable job tonight as a surrogate," she said.
"It's not that I disagree with anything they're saying. But those two people are signaling to a whole lot of Americans that are paying attention, 'How come they're not running? How come the Democratic Party doesn't have them at the top of the ticket instead of using them to sure up what have become, after tonight, some glaring weaknesses in our president?"
McCaskill added that Biden's advisers "are going to have a heart to heart with the president about his ability to exude strength."
Charlie McCarthy ✉
Charlie McCarthy, a writer/editor at Newsmax, has nearly 40 years of experience covering news, sports, and politics.
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