WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - Rep Lloyd Doggett, a U.S. representative from Texas, has demanded that President Joe Biden must step aside to make way for a better candidate in the upcoming U.S. Presidential election.
'I represent the heart of a congressional district once represented by Lyndon Johnson. Under very different circumstances, he made the painful decision to withdraw. President Biden should do the same,' Doggett said in a statement on Tuesday.
'Recognizing that, unlike Trump, President Biden's first commitment has always been to our country, not himself, I am hopeful that he will make the painful and difficult decision to withdraw. I respectfully call on him to do so,' he added.
Doggett is the first Democratic member of the U.S. Congress to make such a call following Biden's below par performance at the presidential debate last week.
The 77-year-old lawmaker, who serves as Ranking Member of the Health Subcommittee on the House Ways & Means Committee, later told CNN that he should have made this call 'much earlier in the process.'
A poll conducted after the U.S. presidential debate suggests American voters' rising concern over whether incumbent Joe Biden has the cognitive health enough to serve a second term.
In an alarming line of thought from the electorate for the Biden campaign, 45 percent of registered Democrats who took part in the poll said they prefer an alternative for Biden as the party candidate for president.
Biden stumbled at many stages of the 90-minute debate while Trump appeared more confident though using multiple falsehoods in attacking his rival.
First lady Jill Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Barack Obama were among top Democrats who have reportedly acknowledged it was not Biden's best campaign performance, but none of them agreed to calls for him to step aside to make way for a better candidate.
Biden put the blame for his poor performance on jet lag after 'travelling around the world a couple of times' before the debate.
'I didn't listen to my staff... and then I nearly fell asleep on stage,' he said at a private fundraiser in Virginia on Tuesday evening, referring to his extensive European tour last month.
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