Democrat who doesn't want Biden to run again: 'We’re at grave risk of another Trump presidency'

Rep. Dean Phillips (D-Minn.), who has criticized President Biden’s reelection efforts, expressed his concern that a rematch between Biden and former President Trump could result in a second Trump term. 

“We’re at grave risk of another Trump presidency,” Phillips said in an interview published Thursday in The Washington Post. “I’m doing this to prevent a return of Donald Trump to the White House.”

Phillips has grown increasingly vocal in his opposition to Biden’s efforts to seek another term in office — much to the chagrin of many of his Democratic colleagues. While Phillips praises Biden’s legislative achievements, calling them “historic in nature” to the Post, he has said he thinks it’s in Biden’s and the Democratic party’s best interests for the president to step aside.

“I want him to preserve his legacy, not to compromise it,” Phillips told the Post. “And this is exactly why I’m asking — pass the torch, open the stage.” 

Phillips’s criticism has centered largely on Biden’s age: 80. “God forbid the president has a health episode or something happens in the middle of a primary,” he told the Post.

The White House has pushed back on some of this criticism, pointing to Biden’s physician’s extensive health report showing the president to be “fit for duty.”

“We would be best served by selecting the person most likely to win, which may or not be the person ‘next in line,’” Phillips added. 

He would not say who he thinks should run, but floated possible other viable candidates including Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D), who is on Biden’s reelection advisory board and supports his reelection campaign. 

Phillips has toyed with the possibility of his own candidacy but has said he has not made a decision yet. 

He repeated that sentiment to the Post, saying, “If, and only if, the president doesn’t pass the torch, if his numbers continue to look like they do right now, and nobody is willing to be an alternative, then I will be making a really important decision, and I have not made that yet.”

He also said he thinks Trump, who is 77, should step aside, but noted that several candidates are challenging him in the Republican primary, the Post reported.

Some Democrats have expressed their frustration with Phillips’s public comments. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) plans to meet with Phillips this week to address some of the remarks, according to a statement confirmed to The Hill by Jeffries’s spokesperson. 

“Joe Biden has been a transformational president. Leader Jeffries strongly supports his candidacy and intends to do everything in his power to make sure that President Biden is re-elected to a second term. Dean Phillips was independently elected to a leadership position in the House Democratic Caucus. He is ultimately accountable to his House colleagues, who have not been bashful in sharing their views,” Jeffries’s spokesperson said in the statement.