The First Lady is in a 'uniquely influential position' to help convince her husband to drop out
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Liberal author Jill Filipovic is calling on First Lady Jill Biden to convince her husband to bow out of the presidential race following his "catastrophic debate" against former President Trump.
In a column for The Daily Beast published Friday, Filipovic hammered President Biden’s debate performance and declared it was high time that the Democratic Party find a replacement for its presidential candidate. She called on Biden’s closest advisors, including his wife, to counsel the president to step aside so that a more formidable candidate may face Trump.
The opinion piece was headlined, "Jill Biden Must Step Up Now to Help Oust Her Husband."
"Right now, we all need her to step up – not to tell her husband what to do, but to push him to really reflect on what is best for the country," the columnist wrote.
A new Daily Beast column urged First Lady Jill Biden to convince her husband to bow out of the 2024 presidential race. (Fox News/screenshot )
Filipovic began her piece with an assessment of the poor position that Biden’s performance put the party in – that now it has either to stick with a candidate who is obviously impaired and could lose to Trump, or to endure a rocky battle to replace the incumbent only a few months before November.
"A second Biden term is seeming less and less likely, and Democratic voters and pundits… seem increasingly nervous that we’re marching to our own funeral," she wrote, though she noted that replacing him isn’t an easy option either.
"But the prospect of challenging an incumbent president just a few months before an election also seems hubristic and dangerous, especially when the Democratic Party is deeply divided, the vice president is unpopular and has been largely marginalized, and there is no obvious Plan B."
The author called the debate "catastrophic" for the president and described it as a "wake-up call" for Biden fans that he "does indeed come across as a struggling elderly man who may be kind and respectable but increasingly lacks the cognitive sharpness to hold the most powerful office in the world."
Many other liberal pundits made the same assessment about Biden’s mental state following the debate.
President Joe Biden looks down as he participates in the first presidential debate of the 2024 elections with former US President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump at CNN's studios in Atlanta, Georgia, on June 27, 2024. (ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS/AFP via Getty Images)
Biden’s mental state, combined with the "enormous" threat of Trump’s second term, leaves the party in a "no-good very-bad place to be," Filipovic declared, noting that while Biden’s choice to run for a second term was "understandable," it was also "overconfident and wrong."
She then called on Biden’s inner circle, particularly his wife, to convince him to bow out.
"It's time for Biden’s inner circle to do the hardest things friends, colleagues, and loved ones can do: Intervene, knowing it will be tremendously hurtful to the person you care about. The needed interventionists include Biden’s long-time friends and advisers, including those closest to him in the White House; it includes his Democratic predecessors Barack Obama and Bill Clinton, both sharp political and strategic minds. And it must include his wife."
"But she is in a uniquely influential position, and she does seem to be an intelligent, thoughtful, compassionate person who her husband listens to for a reason," Filipovic continued, concluding, "Right now, we all need her to step up—not to tell her husband what to do, but to push him to really reflect on what is best for the country, and the hard choices that may be necessary to save it."
Despite such recommendations, President Biden is still campaigning and there's no indication at all he plans to drop out.
The Biden campaign did not immediately reply to Fox News Digital's request for comment.
Gabriel Hays is an associate editor for Fox News Digital.
