In comments to news website Semafor, Welch, 77, criticized as “inappropriate” the way Biden’s campaign staff had swatted back growing calls for him to drop out of the race.
In particular, Welch took issue with a memo by Biden’s deputy campaign manager Rob Flaherty ridiculing those calling for Biden to step aside as part of a “bedwetting brigade” and calling the strategy a surefire way to ensure Trump’s victory in November.
“I really do criticize the campaign for a dismissive attitude towards people who are raising questions for discussion,” Welch told the site. “That’s just facing the reality that we’re in.”
Welch said the entire campaign — “from the top levels of the Biden campaign to precinct captains in the Southside of Chicago”— needs to address the issue of the president’s fitness head-on.
“The campaign has raised the concerns themselves,” Welch said. “So then to be dismissive of others who raise those concerns, I think it’s inappropriate.”
Welch’s remarks expounded on comments he made to Seven Days the day after the debate, when he acknowledged the poor performance as a “setback” but largely stressed how much he admires and respects Biden and views Trump as a threat to democracy.
“The president’s challenge was not so much to articulate his values or his accomplishments. He’s on solid ground there,” Welch said. “It was to address the age issue, and he intensified rather than alleviated apprehensions about that.”
Welch said Biden’s team needed to first acknowledge that setback internally and then assuage people’s concerns.
“They have to have an energetic plan which they can execute, which has the president out in public demonstrating the capacity to do the hardest job in the world for the next four years,” Welch said.
Welch is the only member of Vermont’s congressional delegation to offer criticism of Biden’s performance or how he and his campaign are responding.
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), 82, has said very little publicly. He told The Hill that Biden was “not very articulate, to say the least.”
Rep. Becca Balint (D-Vt.) issued a statement to Seven Day after the debate that failed to mention the debate at all, but framed the election as a choice between a felon and “an honest, decent President with a proven track record of fighting for working families.”
Howard Dean, a former Vermont governor, presidential candidate and Democratic National Committee chair, said after the debate that only pundits and “bit characters” were calling on Biden to step aside — and it was far too soon to panic. “I think in general when things like this happen, it’s best to wait 10 days to see how it all shakes out,” he said.