Former Obama adviser David Axelrod was quick to reject what he calls a "fantasy" of removing President Biden from the Democratic ticket ahead of the election.
Axelrod, an outspoken critic of Biden's reelection campaign, appeared on Friday's installment of "Real Time" where host Bill Maher reiterated his concern about the president's electability, pointing to a recent Politico report outlining the sheer panic of top Democrats behind the scenes.
Maher cited one of Axelrod's own past comments suggesting he thought there was plenty of "talent" within the Democratic Party who could "emerge" as the new standard-bearer.
"The debate is June 27, and we've never had one before the convention," Maher said. "If Joe really s---s the bed, would that be a good opportunity to make the switch then?"
"Listen, that is a fantasy that I hear a lot," Axelrod responded. "I like Joe Biden and I worked with him and I was grateful to work with him and I think he's done a lot of very, very fine things as president for which history will be kind him. That's not the question. The question is whether at this age you should have run, but he did run. And right now he is the nominee of the Democratic Party."
"This is not 1968 where the convention is gonna decide. We changed the rules. Voters nominate a candidate. They've nominated Joe Biden, and he's not going anywhere," Axelrod told Maher. "There's no generation of elders who are gonna go to the White House and tell him that he can't run. He is going to run and one of the reasons they want an early debate I'm sure is to focus people on this is the choice! It's Trump and Biden."
"I mean, you can take the easy way out and say, 'Well, I'm not gonna vote for either of them,' but one of those guys is gonna be President of the United States and people oughta focus on that and give up on the sort of fantasy that there's gonna be another candidate," he added.
Just days earlier, Maher revived his push to swap Biden off the Democratic ticket, viewing the president's sudden urge to debate former President Trump as a sign that he "know's he's losing."
"To me it says Biden knows he's losing because otherwise he wouldn't have agreed," Maher said at the time. "Only the loser wants to debate."
"I think the guy who has more to prove is Biden," Maher later told the panel. "Trump is a known commodity. They know he's gonna be an a-- h--e. He's gonna be lurking and growling and not obeying the rules and everything else. But Biden, they want to see proof of life."
Maher previously pushed to switch Biden off the ticket in February after the release of Special Counsel Robert Hur's report that fueled questions about the president's mental acuity.
Last year, the liberal comedian began calling the president "Ruth Bader Biden," linking the 81-year-old Democrat to the late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who famously chose not to step aside during the Obama years and was replaced by Trump appointee Justice Amy Coney Barrett following her passing.
