Ryan Asks Biden to Bow Out

House member becomes latest Democrat to break with nominee

Rep. Pat Ryan, a Democrat whose 18th Congressional district includes Beacon, published an opinion piece in the Poughkeepsie Journal on Wednesday (July 10) calling for President Joe Biden, also a Democrat, to end his bid for re-election.

Ryan, who urged Biden to “deliver on his promise to be a ‘bridge’ to a new generation of leaders,” posted a similar message on X/Twitter. He became the eighth House Democrat and the first member of Congress from New York to ask Biden to step aside after his poor performance in a June 27 debate against former President Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee.

Biden has so far brushed off the calls, saying earlier this week in a letter to congressional Democrats that he is “firmly committed” to staying in the race.

Support for Trump

Rep. Mike Lawler, a Republican whose 17th Congressional district includes Philipstown, has endorsed former President Donald Trump but hasn’t exactly been shouting from the rooftops about his decision.

In a December town hall, he said he would prefer that neither Trump nor Biden were on the ballot. “I don’t think either of them are able to do the job, frankly, at this point,” he said.

In April, he declined to tell a reporter from The Journal News whom he had voted for in the New York presidential primary, or if he had voted, although two days later he told CNN he had voted for the former president.

In his op-ed, Ryan, who is up for re-election this fall and holds a House seat that Republicans have targeted to flip, recalled taking the oath of office 18 months ago. “As I stood there, on the very same ground at West Point where I took a similar oath 20 years earlier,” wrote Ryan, a West Point graduate and U.S. Army veteran, “I felt the full weight and responsibility of this position.

“That oath wasn’t to any party, special interest or politician,” he said. “As an American — as a patriot — I swore to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.”

Ryan called Trump “a threat to American democracy” who has been convicted of a felony, tried to overturn the 2020 election and, if re-elected, “wants to criminalize abortion, give more tax breaks to billionaires and big corporations and gut Social Security.”

Ryan said that Biden is “a patriot and a person of great integrity” while acknowledging past disagreements with the president over border policies and his withdrawal in 2021 of troops from Afghanistan. However, in “countless conversations, especially over the last few weeks,” Ryan said that constituents have told him they’re losing faith in the country.

They feel both Democrats and Republicans have failed them and that Biden and Trump, who are the two oldest presidential candidates ever presented by the parties, are “awful” choices, he said.

“Let me be clear: I am asserting no moral equivalency between Biden and Trump,” wrote Ryan, who said he will vote for Biden if he remains in the race. But for the good of the country and “the future of our kids and grandkids,” the president should step aside, he said.

He added: “I’ll work with any patriot who wants to join me in putting country before party to get it done.”