MSNBC host Jen Psaki defended her old boss President Joe Biden during the opening monologue of her Sunday show but noted that questions about replacing him are “valid.”

During Sunday’s Inside With Jen Psaki, the former White House press secretary conceded that calls for the president to bow out of the race are not “going away.”

Media pundits and some Democrats have called on Biden to step away from the 2024 race against Donald Trump based on his performance at CNN’s debate earlier this week. Biden struggled to give coherent answers on important policy issues and appeared confused during parts of the debate.

Psaki deemed the calls for the president to be “valid” but added that his campaign “seem to quite invested in the fight to keep going.”

Joe Biden had a very bad night on Thursday. There is no one that Democratic lawmakers, not Biden campaign officials, not Joe Biden himself, who would tell you that he had a good night or they shouldn’t tell you that. And remember, the biggest concern about the president from the moment this reelection campaign started was about his age and his ability to campaign effectively. The campaign wanted to have a debate early to shake up the race and silence those concerns. Instead, the president made them much louder, and his performance, or lack thereof, at many moments, also completely overshadowed what was a complete torrent of lies from Donald Trump, but some crazy language.

So no, not a good night for the Biden campaign. And what came next was a full scale freakout inside several factions of the Democratic Party. My old boss, David Plouffe, who I’m going to talk to in just a minute, and is one of the smartest political minds in the country, called it a Defcon 1 moment that night. And he was right. It was. I mean, within the first 10 minutes of that debate, the question was being asked here in Washington and Capitol Hill, offices and group chats all over my phone and editorial meetings across the country: Whether Joe Biden should carry on as the Democratic nominee.

And our job is not to ignore those questions because they are real, they are valid, and they aren’t going away. Today, the president is at Camp David with his family for a photo shoot. The trip was pre-planned and announced a week ago, and honestly did not raise any alarm bells to me. But its existence has fueled a lot of speculation about what they might discuss, given how close his family and how important his family’s to him. And the speculation is not going to stop anytime soon. But right now, it’s also important to remember there is no real indication that Joe Biden plans to step aside, and he and the campaign seem to be quite invested in the fight to keep going.

Watch the clip above via MSNBC.

The post WATCH: Jen Psaki Goes to Bat for Biden — But Concedes Questions About Replacing Him Are ‘Valid’ and Are Not ‘Going Away’ first appeared on Mediaite.

from Mediaite https://ift.tt/8wjhJM5