Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) wrote a letter President Joe Biden asking him to hear out his Democratic supporters and colleagues about whether to suspend his reelection bid, arguing that there is “no shame in taking a well-deserved bow.”
The letter, which was sent to Biden over the Fourth of July weekend, makes references to baseball and Biden’s previous speeches as the Maryland Democrat seeks to persuade the president to engage in the “exercise of careful common sense.”
“As a great politician, you listen carefully to your fellow politicians and, most of all, you listen carefully to the people,” Raskin wrote in the letter, obtained by the Washington Examiner. “Common sense, Tom Paine taught us, is the sense we have in common when we speak and listen and rigorously reason together. Common sense is the sixth sense we acquire together in strong democracy. And it is through the exercise of careful common sense you can empower us again to have faith in our capacity to carry on the great work you have begun.”
Raskin’s pleas are the latest to join those of a handful of Democrats expressing concerns over whether Biden is a strong enough candidate to defeat former President Donald Trump.
“I am not writing to presume to tell you what to do, Mr. President, because that is up to you and Jill and your family entirely,” Raskin added. “You will be the best judge of that. But I am writing to remind you of who you are. As a truly great and magnificent leader, you belong to all of us. Sometimes it will be hard for you to perceive, much less fully comprehend, the substance and character of your own greatness.”
Raskin reminded Biden of his 2020 campaign speeches and his January speech at Valley Forge that spoke about vows to America, “not a vow to one party, much less to one person.”
The Maryland Democrat’s letter remarked on several of the Biden administration’s accomplishments, echoing comments from the other 20 Democrats who have called on the president to withdraw from the race: Biden’s legacy is already cemented, so the best thing he could do to keep it is to pass the torch.
“Everything we believe in is on the line in the next four-and-a-half months,” Raskin told Biden. “We have an overriding obligation to defeat the forces of resurgent monarchy and oppression. Everything else pales in comparison to this struggle, even your magnificent policy achievements. No one envies the choice you must make now, Mr. President, but remember this as the great politician you are and have always been.”
Raskin said in a statement that he wrote the letter to show there needs to be a “strategic internal discussion” on how to move forward and determine the best way to “decisively win the election, which is of immeasurable importance to the future of America.”
“The letter expressed my profound affection for the president, my great concern for the future of the country and my confidence in the judgment he would make,” the House Oversight Committee ranking member said in a statement provided to the Washington Examiner. “None of those things has changed.”
The revelation of Raskin’s letter comes a day after Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), another prominent Democrat who is running for the seat of the late Sen. Dianne Feinstein, called on Biden to withdraw from the race. Schiff argued that there should be only “one goal: defeating Donald Trump. The stakes are just too high.”
Biden, who is sidelined this week with COVID-19, has insisted that he is still running for reelection, while reports from various outlets that he is becoming more receptive to the idea of stepping aside and allowing Democrats to select a new nominee.
The president said in an interview with BET’s Ed Gordon that he would consider dropping out if his medical staff diagnosed him with a new condition or disease that would make continuing his campaign impossible. The medical condition is another “if” added to Biden’s list of reasons he would step down: a sign from God, urging from his family, or if polls showed that he had no chance of winning.
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A Biden campaign official pointed the Washington Examiner to comments made Thursday morning by Principal Deputy Manager Quentin Fulks.
“Look, I talk to the president every day like I said,” Fulks told reporters. “He is not wavering on anything. The president has made his decision. I don’t want to be rude, but I don’t know how many more times we can answer that. Joe Biden has said he is running for president of the United States.”