A major Democratic donor says it is time for President Joe Biden to pull out of the 2024 presidential election.
Billionaire investor Bill Ackman said Tuesday that Bidenās best days have come and gone, according to Bloomberg.
āBidenās done a lot of good things. But I think his legacy will not be a good one if he is the nominee,ā Ackman said in an upcoming episode ofĀ āThe David Rubenstein Show: Peer-to-Peer Conversations.ā
āThe right thing for Biden to do is to step aside, and to say heās not going to run, and create the opportunity for some competition,ā Ackman said.
Ackman, who foundedĀ Pershing Square Capital ManagementĀ founder, said was āimpressedā with Democratic Rep. Dean Phillips of Minnesota, who has declared himself a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination.
āYou need to be at your intellectual best. And I donāt think Biden is there,ā Ackman said.
āI donāt say that, you know, with any derision of the president, but I think heās clearly past his physical and cognitive peak,ā Ackman added.
Since 1998, Ackman has mainly donated to Democratic candidates, according to the website InfluenceWatch.
However, he said he would prefer a Republican such as former South Carolina Gov. and U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley of Haley and ex-New Jersey Governor Chris Christie to Biden, Bloomberg reported.
In an Op-Ed on Fox Business, host Stuart Varney said Biden should not be on the 2024 ballot.
āThis presidency is going from bad to worse. I canāt imagine whatās going on in theĀ White House.Ā The election is less than a year away, and the presidentās advisers knowĀ Joe BidenĀ is likely to lose,ā he said.
āThe dilemma is how to get the president out of the race.Ā There is no easy answer if Joe Biden himself doesnāt step aside voluntarily,ā he said, noting former President Lyndon Johnsonās decision in 1968 not to seek re-election in the face of dwindling support.
āTo sum it up, Bidenās insistence on running is killing his party,ā Varney said.
Douglas Schoen, in an Op-Ed on The Hill, said replacing Biden would not necessarily solve all of the partyās problems. Schoen said changing now may be too late.
āy staying in the race as long as he has, Biden has made it near impossible for a candidate other than Harris to meet filing deadlines to get on primary ballots, or to build out the massive organizational infrastructure necessary to run a presidential campaign,ā he wrote, referring to Vice President Kamala Harris, who he noted is also plagued by abysmal poll numbers.
Schoen wrote that āwhether or not Biden is the nominee, Democrats are in a weakened position ahead of 2024. And while it may be fair to ask whether Biden should have said at the beginning of the year that he would not seek reelection in order to give challengers time to position themselves, the simple fact is that he did not.ā
āAs such, despite Bidenās declining poll numbers, changing horses in the middle of the 2024 race would, at best, have very little impact,ā he wrote.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
