Sen. Chris Murphy: 'It was a mistake' for Democrats to let Biden stay in the race

Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., on Sunday said “it was a mistake” for Democrats to allow Joe Biden to remain in the 2024 presidential race for as long as he did, echoing recent comments from other Democrats as the party reckons with fallout from new reporting on the then-president’s mental acuity.

“By 2024, the American people had decided that they wanted somebody new. They wanted somebody younger,” Murphy told NBC News’ “Meet the Press.”

“And it was a mistake,” the senator said. “It was a mistake for Democrats to not listen to the voters earlier and set up a process that would have gotten us in a position where we could have been more competitive that fall.”

Murphy’s comments come just days before the release of “Original Sin,” a book by Axios’ Alex Thompson and CNN’s Jake Tapper that includes interviews with people in Biden’s orbit who say they saw his mental state decline while he was president.

It also comes after Axios published the full interview between Biden and special counsel Robert Hur, who investigated whether Biden improperly stored classified documents following his time as vice president in the Obama administration.

The interview, conducted in October 2023, led to Hur’s assertion in a February 2024 report outlining his decision not to charge Biden that the former president was an “elderly man with a poor memory.” The newly released audio of the interview confirmed Biden’s memory lapses during Hur’s questioning.

Murphy on Sunday defended Biden, saying he had not read the “Original Sin” book but worked with the former president closely on legislation in 2023 and “I saw a president who was in control.”

“That’s my experience,” Murphy added. “But I admit that by 2024 the American public had made up their mind, right, that they wanted the Democratic Party to nominate somebody new, and it was absolutely a mistake for the party to not listen to those voters.”

Still, Murphy conceded that “we all bear responsibility” for how the election turned out, with President Donald Trump returning to the White House for a second term after beating then-Vice President Kamala Harris.

“I think, you know, we maybe didn’t listen as early as we should have, in part, because we have immense loyalty to this man who had led this country out of a pandemic, who had been maybe the most prodigious legislator as a president,” Murphy told “Meet the Press” moderator Kristen Welker.

“Ultimately, in retrospect, you can’t defend what the Democratic Party did,” the senator added, saying the country was now “stuck” with Trump and “we should have given ourselves a better chance to win.”

Ultimately, in July 2024, Biden did step down from his re-election campaign, quickly endorsing Harris and clearing the way for her to accept the Democratic nomination weeks later at the Democratic National Convention.

But Murphy said Sunday that an open primary would have benefited the party’s prospects.

“In retrospect, the president should have gotten out of the race earlier,” he said. “There’s no doubt that the Democratic Party would have been better served by having the ability to have an open primary. Kamala Harris probably would have done very well in that process, but in retrospect, we lost.”

His remarks echoed those that Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., made to “Meet the Press” last week, where she told Welker, “Yes, we would have been served better by a primary. But we are where we are.”

On ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday, Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., made a similar point.

“Look, the Democratic Party needs to be honest,” Khanna said. “There’s a sense people want honesty. They want to restore a sense of public service in light of what has come out. It’s painfully obvious President Biden should not have run.”

This article was originally published on NBCNews.com