Publicly and privately, some Democrats are panicking over President Biden’s reelection prospects in the wake of a special counsel report that describes Mr. Biden as too old and feeble-minded to be prosecuted for carelessly and illegally stashing classified records in his home and office.
Former advisers for ex-Presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton have long warned that Mr. Biden’s mental acuity is obviously slipping and could make it harder for him to win in November, a threat that is backed up by many polls.
The special counsel report released Thursday ramped up those concerns by chronicling the president’s mental decline in black and white, such as Mr. Biden’s inability to recall when he served as vice president or when his son Beau died.
Then, Mr. Biden, 81, delivered an angry rant in a prime-time address Thursday, displaying other memory lapses on live television, such as confusing the identity of Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi with the president of Mexico and trailing off when he tried to recall where he obtained a set of rosary beads commemorating his late son. Beau Biden died of brain cancer in 2015 at age 46.
Former Clinton adviser Paul Begala summed up how many Democrats likely felt after Mr. Biden’s disastrous day.
“I slept like a baby,” Mr. Begala joked on CNN. “I woke up every two hours and wet the bed. This is terrible for Democrats. And anybody with a functioning brain knows that.”
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It would be impossible to restart the Democratic primary campaign and let voters choose a replacement for Mr. Biden on the November ballot because the deadline for ballot access has passed in most states. Mr. Biden has won every primary so far and is on track to wsecure the nomination in March.
But anonymous Democrats on Capitol Hill and at least one former Biden administration official suggested in media reports that someone else should run against former President Donald Trump, 77, the presumptive Republican nominee, even if it means Democratic Party officials replace Mr. Biden at the Chicago Democratic National Convention in August.
But that’s a long shot.
The next-in-line choice, Vice President Kamala Harris, 59, polls poorly, and picking another candidate, such as California Gov. Gavin Newsom, 56, who might fare better against Mr. Trump, risks angering the party’s critical base of Black voters.
Democratic strategist Hank Sheinkopf predicted Mr. Biden won’t budge from the ballot.
“Democratic insiders may be complaining because they’re looking at poll numbers seeing young people running away,” Mr. Sheinkopf said. “But the reality is they’re not going to take on the president of the United States because, you want to pay a price, politically? You’re going against the most powerful person in the party.”
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White House officials on Friday hammered special counsel Robert Hur’s 345-page report that concluded there could be no viable case against Mr. Biden over his stash of classified documents.
The report prompted Republican accusations of a double standard. Mr. Trump is facing criminal charges for taking and keeping classified material at his Mar-a-Lago home despite his assertion that he had the power to declassify information as the commander in chief.
Mr. Hur concluded that Mr. Biden “willfully retained and disclosed classified materials” after he was vice president in the Obama administration and dating back to his time as a senator, but he said it doesn’t establish Mr. Biden’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.
Mr. Hur rejected prosecuting Mr. Biden because of several factors, the most politically damaging among them being his difficulty proving the president intended to break the law because of his inability to recall key facts.
Mr. Biden, Mr. Hur wrote, “would likely present himself to a jury, as he did during our interview of him, as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.”
A new poll by NBC News found 76% of voters are concerned about Mr. Biden’s age. By comparison, 61% said they are worried about Mr. Trump’s mounting legal entanglements. He is facing 91 criminal charges in four separate cases.
“The game here is that Donald Trump will be a more flawed person and candidate, and Joe Biden will be a less flawed person and a better candidate,” Mr. Sheinkopf said. “I predict Biden will remain the nominee. He’s got a shot to win. He’s got a shot to lose.”