Formerly high-profile Democrat Beto O’Rourke joined others in his party abandoning Joe Biden, saying this week that the 46th president “failed this country” by seeking reelection in 2024.

O’Rourke told the Pod Save America podcast, “We might very well lose the greatest country that this world has ever known,” he said, blasting Biden for clinging to power and ignoring widespread voter dissatisfaction. “It’s not just you and me, but our kids and grandkids … who might have to pay the price for this.”

The Daily Caller wrote:

O’Rourke, a former congressman and failed gubernatorial candidate in Texas, said Biden’s refusal to step aside for a younger generation of Democrats stifled the party’s ability to put forward a compelling alternative to Trump. “It might be in part because of the decision that Biden and those around him made to run for re-election instead of having an open primary,” O’Rourke said.

O’Rourke has been holding town halls across Texas amid speculation he may be prepping for a 2026 run for the Senate.

The former Texas politician also slammed party insiders who claimed Biden was mentally sharp behind closed doors. “It just doesn’t add up with what I’m seeing with my own lying eyes,” he said. He suggested such gaslighting about Biden’s cognitive abilities damaged the Democrats’ credibility.

O’Rourke now joins a number of Democrat politicians and supporters who see the Biden legacy as a politically sinking ship that holds no hope for future chances, as Breitbart News reported last week.

Some party insiders and aides are also admitting in interviews and in a slew of newly published books that the 82-year-old 46th president was cognitively and physically struggling during his term in office.

The admissions come as the Democrat Party tries to chart a future course while suffering from historically low approval polls.

Not helping that effort was the release by Axios on late Friday of the audio of Biden’s interview with special counsel Robert Hur, who was investigating the former president’s alleged illegal possession of classified documents. Hur chose not to charge Biden because he said a jury would see him as a “sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.”

In the audio, Biden struggles with a variety of important subjects, including not even being able to remember the year his son Beau died and when Donald Trump was elected to his first term.

Axios posted highlights on YouTube:

After Hur’s report came out in early 2024, Biden was livid at the suggestion that he had forgotten when his son died, Breitbart News wrote. “How in the hell dare he raise that?” an angry Biden asked.

Lowell Cauffiel covered Ronald Reagan’s first presidential campaign for the Detroit News. He is the best-selling author of Below the Line and nine other crime novels and nonfiction titles. See lowellcauffiel.com for more.