Business leaders call on Biden to resign
A group of business leaders are calling on President Biden to step down and make way for a replacement at the top of the Democratic Party presidential nomination.
Leadership Now Project, a coalition of 400 politically active current and retired executives who are largely, but not entirely, left-leaning, has launched a rack Wednesday, urging Biden to “pass the torch of this year’s presidential nomination to the next generation of highly capable Democrats.”
The statement is unsigned, but Daniella Ballou-Aares, the group’s founder and CEO, said it was supported by an overwhelming majority of Leadership Now Project members.
The members include Jeni Britton Bauer, the founder of Jeni’s Famous Ice Cream; Thomas W. Florsheim Jr., the chief executive of footwear manufacturer Weyco Group; Eddie Fishman, the chief executive of investment firm D.E. Shaw & Company; John Pepper, the former chief executive of Procter & Gamble; and Paul Tagliabue, the former commissioner of the National Football League.
The statement comes as major Democratic donors increasingly conclude that the party would have a better chance of retaining the White House with another nominee, after Mr. Biden’s weak performance in last week’s presidential debate with Donald J. Trump. But most donors and big-money groups on the left have refrained from going public out of concern about generating a backlash.
In its statement, Leadership Now Project called the prospect of a second Trump term “an existential threat to American democracy” and said Biden “failed to effectively argue his case against Trump during the debate, and we now fear the risk of a devastating loss in November.”
The statement continued that “we have heard from many people who share our deep concerns about the current course but are afraid to speak out” and concluded with a call for others “to join us in making this urgent appeal.”
In an interview, Ms. Ballou-Aares, a businesswoman who was a senior adviser to the State Department during the Obama administration, said she had felt disturbed by the messages from the White House and other Biden supporters in recent days.
“The sense that this is a decision of a small group and family is not good for democracy,” she said, calling it “really inconsistent with where people were after watching the debate.”
Her group, which includes nonprofits and a political action committee, has supported candidates from both parties and recently hosted her annual meeting former Rep. Adam Kinzinger, an anti-Trump Republican, and Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat, have been mentioned as possible replacements for Mr. Biden.
