The day after President Joe Biden’s performance in the first 2024 general election debate sparked headlines about a Democratic panic, lawmakers in the party treaded carefully on the subject as they left the capitol on Friday, widely conceding it was a “bad night” while, in two cases, urging people to “chill out.”
“It was a bad night,” Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., who chaired the House select committee investigating the attack on the capitol on Jan. 6 told reporters on Friday. “But it's not the end of the campaign.”
Asked what happened, Thompson replied “I have no idea.”
Rep. James Clyburn, D-S.C., who is widely credited as a key part of Biden winning the Democratic primary in South Carolina in 2020, reviving his ultimately successful bid for the White House, similarly said the president had a “poor performance” Thursday night.
But asked about chatter and concern surrounding whether Biden should remain the party’s nominee, Clyburn was steadfast.
“Stay the course,” he said. “Chill out, chill out.”
“I’m with Fetterman,” Clyburn added, referencing a post on X, formerly Twitter, by Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., who told people to “Chill the f— out.” In a closely watched senate race in battleground Pennsylvania in 2022, Fetterman faced criticism for his performance in a debate, which came after the now senator suffered a stroke, with Republican rival Mehmet Oz.
“Did Joe Biden have a bad night in my opinion? Yes, he absolutely did,” Rep. Gregory Meeks, D-N.Y., said, emphasizing, however, that Biden is still “the right guy at the right time.”
Rep. Kathy Castor, D-Fla., meanwhile, called it a “rough debate” and appeared to leave things more open-ended.
“I’m a little frustrated – he has such a broad record of accomplishments, strong record of accomplishments, lowering costs and serving our neighbors and I want him to better articulate that,” Castor said. “So we’ll see where we go from here.”
The incumbent president’s performance in the first general election debate of the 2024 cycle, in which he appeared to be low energy, at times tripped over his words and was hoarse – Biden told reporters after the debate that he had a “sore throat” – sparked fresh questions about his candidacy and headlines about worried Democrats.
“Bad debate nights happen,” former President Barack Obama wrote in a post on X on Friday.
“But this election is still a choice between someone who has fought for ordinary folks his entire life and someone who only cares about himself,” he continued, going on to write that “Last night didn’t change that.”
Biden himself appeared to acknowledge uneasiness around his performance during a campaign rally in North Carolina on Friday in which he told the crowd “When you get knocked down, you get back up.”
The president told reporters after the debate Thursday night that he thought “we did well.”
Biden’s team, a source familiar with the campaign said, still walked away from the debate believing the president drew the contrasts they hoped would be put on display with former President Donald Trump on reproductive health, the economy and democracy.
In a statement directly following the debate, Jen O’Malley Dillon, Biden’s campaign chair, said Biden “presented a positive and winning vision for the future of America,” while Trump “offered a dark and backwards window into what America will look like if he steps foot back in the White House.”
But on Friday, the communications director of Biden's campaign, Michael Tyler, told reporters that the president didn’t have the “best night on the debate stage.” He noted, however, that Biden was committed to the second presidential debate, scheduled for Sept. 10 and hosted by ABC News, and that there are "no conversations" about him stepping away from the ticket.
The campaign on Friday said it brought in $14 million on the day of the debate, noting the 11 to 12 p.m. timeslot following the debate marked a record for the most it has raised in one hour since Biden launched his reelection bid.
As for the GOP, Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, on Friday put forth a resolution calling on Vice President Kamala Harris to force Biden out of office using the 25th Amendment.
“We have seven months remaining in this term,” Roy told reporters. “I don’t believe that the president – what we saw last night – is capable of exercising the duties of commander in chief.”