Now even the New York Times turns on Biden: Democrat-friendly newspaper urges President to quit the race for the White House after disastrous debate – as party donors and congressmen give him a week to ‘prove he is not dead’

Now even the New York Times has turned on Joe Biden – as the Democrat-friendly newspaper urged the President to quit the race for the White House last night the day after his disastrous debate.

Party donors and congressmen are said to have given him the ailing President a week to ‘prove he is not dead’ after the car-crash showdown against Trump.

Insiders described the 81-year-old’s debate showing as a ‘train wreck’ and ‘dumpster fire’ and some openly suggested he should step aside for another candidate.

Biden meandered through the 90-minute CNN spectacle, struggling to finish sentences and lost his train of thought multiple times in front of tens of millions of stunned TV viewers. 

And in a blunt editorial, the broadsheet slammed him as a ‘shadow’ of his former self as they admitted the once ‘admirable’ politician ‘struggled to make it to the end of a sentence’.

In an article titled ‘To Serve His Country, President Biden Should Leave the Race’ they blasted his continued attempt to run as a ‘reckless gamble’ with the country’s future.

They said the country needed someone stronger to stand in the way of  the ‘significant jeopardy to that democracy’ characterised by the Republican leader.

In a damning blow, the paper’s editorial board said: ‘There is no reason for the party to risk the stability and security of the country by forcing voters to choose between Mr. Trump’s deficiencies and those of Mr. Biden. It’s too big a bet to simply hope Americans will overlook or discount Mr. Biden’s age and infirmity that they see with their own eyes.’

They continued: ‘The clearest path for Democrats to defeat a candidate defined by his lies is to deal truthfully with the American public: acknowledge that Mr. Biden can’t continue his race, and create a process to select someone more capable to stand in his place to defeat Mr. Trump in November.

‘It is the best chance to protect the soul of the nation — the cause that drew Mr. Biden to run for the presidency in 2019 — from the malign warping of Mr. Trump. And it is the best service that Mr. Biden can provide to a country that he has nobly served for so long.’

The editorial comes despite a defiant Biden’s insisting last night that he could still win an election as he refused to pull the plug on his election bid.

The president used a rally in Raleigh, North Carolina, to assuage the widespread concerns as some of his closest allies including Obama publicly stood behind him behind him despite admitting the performance was bad.

‘I know I’m not a young man. To state the obvious,’ Biden said alongside First Lady Jill while she wore a Christian Siriano dress covered in the word ‘vote.’

‘Folks, I don’t walk as easily as I used to. I don’t speak as smoothly as I used to. I don’t debate as well as I used to.’

‘But I know what I know – I know how to tell the truth. I know right from wrong. And I know how to do this job. I know how to get things done,’ the president argued.

‘I give you my word as a Biden. I would not be running again if I didn’t believe with all my heart and soul that I could do this job,’ he said.

And now Democrat grandees are calling for the President to suspend his campaign and step aside for a younger candidate at this year’s party convention, which will take place in August.

‘I think the president has one week to prove he is not dead,’ Matthew Yglesias, a US political blogger, was told by one congressman. 

Mark Buell, a Democrat donor, said: ‘Do we have time to put somebody else in there?’

Barack Obama advisor David Axelrod said: ‘There are going to be discussions about whether he should continue.’

And David Plouffe, who managed Obama’s campaign when he came to power in 2008, told CNN: ‘It’s kind of a Defcon 1 moment… they are three years apart, but they seemed about 30 years apart tonight.’

This frank concern was concurred in the UK – where Conservative Cabinet ministers desperately sought to preserve Britain’s ‘special relationship’.

Three told The Telegraph that Biden needed to be swapped out for someone younger.

They bluntly said the Democrats have to ‘get rid’ of the aging politician and ‘switch him fast’ if they want to hold on to victory. 

The president used the 20-minute speech in North Carolina to clean up many of the arguments he attempted to make on the debate stage against his Republican opponent.

‘I don’t know what you did last night but I spent 90 minutes on a stage debating a guy who has the morals of an alley cat,’ Biden said.

‘Did you see Trump last night? I guess he set a new record – I mean this sincerely – for the number of lies told in a single debate,’ the president continued.

‘He lied about the kind of economy he created. He lied about the pandemic he botched – killing millions of people,’ Biden went on.

The president pushed that Trump lied in his denial about calling military members ‘suckers and losers,’ a claim made by the Republican’s former Chief of Staff John Kelly.

‘He tried to deny it. But are you going to believe a four star Marine general?’ Biden asked. ‘Or a disgraced, defeated lying Donald Trump?’