A prominent Democrat and personal friend of Joe Biden just called for him to drop out of the race for president in an opinion piece for the New York Times.

New York Times author Thomas Friedman, who can spin like the best of them for Democrats, isn’t spinning after what he saw last night.

No, Friedman said Biden’s performance made him cry:

I watched the Biden-Trump debate alone in a Lisbon hotel room, and it made me weep. I cannot remember a more heartbreaking moment in American presidential campaign politics in my lifetime — precisely because of what it revealed: Joe Biden, a good man and a good president, has no business running for re-election…

The Biden family and political team must gather quickly and have the hardest of conversations with the president, a conversation of love and clarity and resolve. To give America the greatest shot possible of deterring the Trump threat in November, the president has to come forward and declare that he will not be running for re-election and is releasing all of his delegates for the Democratic National Convention.

That’s how Friedman stared out the article in the so-called “paper of record”. He got straight to the point without any window dressing at all. Amazing.

Jacqui Heinrich of Fox News reports on the comments she is getting from Democrat sources, saying “we are f***ed” and “the race is over.”

Texts with Dem sources this morning:
“the race is over”
“we are f***ed”

Responding to my question of whether the campaign will kill the second debate, one Dem source said “God, I don’t know”. Another said “We should.”

I’ve been asking whether any heads will roll in Biden’s inner circle – the resounding answer is no, which is depressing to many of them.

Sources agreed with my assessment that Biden was over-produced, struggling to reach for pre-fabricated lines that his aides tried to drill into his memory over 7 days of practice.

Nobody seems to have an idea of what the remedy is as of now.

I wish I could be a fly on Joe Biden’s wall. You know he is so angry and lashing out at his team over the coverage he’s getting post-debate. And calls, like this one from his close personal friend, to drop out.