While Rep. Ro Khanna said on ABC’s “This Week,” “It’s painfully obvious President Biden should not have run.”
Many, however, have argued that relitigating Biden’s role in Democrats’ loss is unproductive, and claiming that they want to focus on a winning strategy for upcoming elections. Biden’s diagnosis may give them another reason to disengage in conversations about his cognitive health.
For example, David Axelrod, a political strategist and former advisor to President Barack Obama, suggested that conversations about Biden’s mental acuity should be “set aside” in light of his cancer news.
While that may be the case in Democratic circles, Biden’s diagnosis has not quelled questions about his mental acuity from some prominent Republican voices but rather fueled allegations.
“We really do need to be honest about whether the former president was capable of doing the job,” said Vice President JD Vance to reporters aboard Air Force Two. “That you can separate the desire for him to have the right health outcome with the recognition that whether it was doctors or whether there were staffers around the former president, I don’t think he was able to do a good job for the American people.”
Biden, even after he has exited political life and as he faces a serious cancer diagnosis, remains a factor in the conversation about his party’s political future.