First Democratic senator calls for Biden to drop out of the race: Peter Welch says Joe is not the candidate to beat Trump

Vermont Sen. Peter Welch became the first Democratic senator to call for President Joe Biden to quit his reelection campaign. 

Welch penned an op-ed for The Washington Post that was published Wednesday evening that dubbed 81-year-old Biden 'one of the best presidents of our time.' 

But then he noted that we 'cannot unsee President Biden's disastrous debate performance' nor 'ignore or dismiss the valid questions raised since that night.'  

'I understand why President Biden wants to run. He saved us from Donald Trump once and wants to do it again,' Welch wrote. 'But he needs to reassess whether he is the best candidate to do so,' he wrote. 

'In my view, he is not,' the Vermont senator concluded. 'For the good of the country, I’m calling on President Biden to withdraw from the race.'

With Welch's admission, now a handful of Democrats from both houses in Congress have pleaded with Biden to bow out. 

The president has, so far, resisted. 

Welch's op-ed was published hours after actor George Clooney, an influential Biden supporters, made the same ask with his own op-ed, this one published in The New York Times.