BURLINGTON, Vt. (WCAX) – Vermont Sen. Peter Welch remains the only sitting U.S. senator to call on President Joe Biden to withdraw from the presidential race. He made the statement in an op-ed in the Washington Post, which was posted Wednesday night. In the piece, Welch says the decision would be good for the country.
“I understand why President Biden wants to run He saved us from Donald Trump once and wants to do it again. But he needs to reassess whether he is the best candidate to do so. In my view, he is not,” Welch, D-Vermont, said in the op-ed.
While touring flood-damaged Moretown on Friday, Welch took questions from WCAX News on his decision to share the piece. He echoed sentiments written in the Post, highlighting concerns over Biden’s debate performance last month.
“We have to keep Trump out of the White House. That’s an existential threat to our democracy. We have to have our best candidate. The debate was very damaging. it was a real setback and raised questions. Going into the debate, there were questions about Biden’s age, coming out of the debate that’s increased enormously,” Welch said.
Welch acknowledged there’s risk either way– staying with Biden as the nominee or another candidate. But he says he believes there is less risk in choosing a new Democratic nominee, in part because the party supports the Biden agenda.
“So all of the folks who might get in the contest would be running to continue the legacy of President Biden, but I think they would have the capacity to energize a lot of the folks who are turned off,” said Welch.
When asked if he thinks his statements will backfire or if he could lose an election or party support, Welch said tough decisions are part of his job.
“A lot of people probably disagree with me but passivity here for me is not the answer. That’s not going to get us to where we need to be. We have to keep Trump out of the White House,” he said.
More than a dozen U.S. House members have also called on Biden to quit the race. The president has rejected those calls.