Now even the New York Times turns on Biden: Democrat-friendly newspaper urges President to quit the race for the White House after disastrous debate - as party donors and congressmen give him a week to 'prove he is not dead'

Now even the New York Times has turned on Joe Biden - as the Democrat-friendly newspaper urged the President to quit the race for the White House the day after his disastrous debate.

Party donors and congressmen are said to have given the ailing President a week to 'prove he is not dead' after the car-crash showdown against Trump.

Insiders described the 81-year-old's performance as a 'train wreck' and a 'dumpster fire' - while some openly suggested he should step aside for another candidate.

Biden meandered through the 90-minute CNN spectacle, struggling to finish sentences and losing his train of thought multiple times in front of tens of millions of stunned TV viewers. 

And despite insisting he was ready to take the fight to Trump and courting LGBTQ voters in New York - including bringing Sir Elton John onstage with him - the President failed to convince key voters that 'I'm Still Standing'.

In a blunt editorial, the broadsheet slammed him as a 'shadow' of his former self as they admitted the once 'admirable' politician 'struggled to make it to the end of a sentence'.

In an article titled 'To Serve His Country, President Biden Should Leave the Race', they blasted his continued attempts to run as a 'reckless gamble' with the country's future.

They said that the country needed 'a stronger opponent' to stand in the way of the 'significant jeopardy to... democracy' - a threat characterised by the Republican leader.

In a damning blow, the newspaper's editorial board said: 'There is no reason for the party to risk the stability and security of the country by forcing voters to choose between Mr. Trump's deficiencies and those of Mr. Biden. It's too big a bet to simply hope Americans will overlook or discount Mr. Biden's age and infirmity that they see with their own eyes.'

They continued: 'The clearest path for Democrats to defeat a candidate defined by his lies is to deal truthfully with the American public: acknowledge that Mr. Biden can't continue his race, and create a process to select someone more capable to stand in his place to defeat Mr. Trump in November.

'It is the best chance to protect the soul of the nation — the cause that drew Mr. Biden to run for the presidency in 2019 — from the malign warping of Mr. Trump. And it is the best service that Mr. Biden can provide to a country that he has nobly served for so long.'

The brutal indictment comes despite a defiant Biden insisting last night that he could still win the election - as he refused to pull the plug on his bid for a second term.

The president used a rally in Raleigh, North Carolina, to assuage the widespread concerns as some of his closest allies - including Obama - publicly backed him despite admitting the performance was bad.

'I know I'm not a young man. To state the obvious,' Biden said, standing alongside First Lady Jill while she wore a Christian Siriano dress covered in the word 'vote.'

'Folks, I don't walk as easily as I used to. I don't speak as smoothly as I used to. I don't debate as well as I used to.'

'But I know what I know - I know how to tell the truth. I know right from wrong. And I know how to do this job. I know how to get things done,' the president argued.

'I give you my word as a Biden. I would not be running again if I didn't believe with all my heart and soul that I could do this job,' he added.

But Democrat grandees are calling for the President to suspend his campaign and step aside for a younger candidate at this year's party convention, which will take place in August.

'I think the president has one week to prove he is not dead,' Matthew Yglesias, a US political blogger, was told by one congressman. 

Mark Buell, a Democrat donor, said: 'Do we have time to put somebody else in there?'

Barack Obama advisor David Axelrod added: 'There are going to be discussions about whether he should continue.'

And David Plouffe, who managed Obama's campaign when he came to power in 2008, told CNN: 'It's kind of a Defcon 1 moment… they are three years apart, but they seemed about 30 years apart tonight.'

This frank concern was concurred in the UK - where Conservative Cabinet ministers desperately sought to preserve Britain's 'special relationship'.

Three told The Telegraph that Biden needed to be swapped out for someone younger.

They bluntly said the Democrats have to 'get rid' of the aging politician and 'switch him fast' if they want to hold on to victory. 

A devastating DailyMail.com snap poll of the debate found that a clear majority of independent voters believe Biden should no longer be the nominee.

Some 62 percent said he should be dumped from the ticket.

J.L. Partners polled 805 independent voters immediately after the 90-minute clash, and found that 68 percent said the former president won out over his White House successor. 

The president used the 20-minute speech in North Carolina to clean up many of the arguments he attempted to make on the debate stage against his Republican opponent.

'I don't know what you did last night but I spent 90 minutes on a stage debating a guy who has the morals of an alley cat,' Biden said.

'Did you see Trump last night? I guess he set a new record - I mean this sincerely - for the number of lies told in a single debate,' the president continued.

'He lied about the kind of economy he created. He lied about the pandemic he botched - killing millions of people,' Biden went on.

The president pushed that Trump lied in his denial about calling military members 'suckers and losers,' a claim made by the Republican's former Chief of Staff John Kelly.

'He tried to deny it. But are you going to believe a four star Marine general?' Biden asked. 'Or a disgraced, defeated lying Donald Trump?'

Biden also dismissed Trump's claims that crime has risen under the Democrat's watch.

'And then I pointed out, that the only convicted criminal onstage last night was Donald Trump,' the president said - making his performance seem much smoother than it actually was.

'Well, I thought about his 34 felony convictions, his sexual assault on a woman in a public place, his being fined $400 million for business fraud,' Biden continued. 'I thought to myself Donald Trump isn't just a convicted felon - Donald Trump is a one-man crime wave.'

That prompted a 'Lock Him Up!' chant from the crowd.

Trump historically led his supporters in 'Lock Her Up!' cheers against his 2016 opponent, Democrat Hillary Clinton.

Biden, at first, appeared to express some discomfort with those words - but also smiled.

The Democratic president said Trump's 'biggest lie' was taken no responsibility for January 6.

'We all saw it with our own eyes,' Biden said.

The president also pushed that he hoped this was the start of his post-debate redemption arc.

'I know what millions of Americans know - when you get knocked down you get back up,' Biden said to cheers.

First lady Jill Biden spoke first and defended her husband's debate performance.

'What you saw last night on the debate stage was Joe Biden - a president with integrity and character who told the truth. And Donald Trump told lie after lie after lie,' Dr. Biden said.

She marveled when the audience joined in and called Trump a liar.

Dr. Biden applauded her husband for spending the last few years helping 'heal the country.'

He 'helped us heal from the chaos of the last administration.'

'We can't choose our chapter of history, but we can choose who leads us through it,' she said. 'There is no one I would rather have sitting in the Oval Office right now than my husband.'

Donald Trump twisted the knife into Biden last night - calling his disastrous debate performance a 'big victory' and suggesting the U.S. can't survive four more years of his presidency if he can't make it through 90 minutes on stage.  

The 77-year-old took the rally stage in Virginia after the state's Republican Governor Glenn Youngkin, who was once tipped to be a challenger for the GOP presidential nomination. 

Trump tore into Biden for his poor performance after a week of rest and then went spoke about migrants, global warming electric cars, Al Capone, Hannibal Lecter, whales, Michelle Obama.

The audience of MAGA faithful then cheered for their favorite nicknames for Biden, including 'sleepy' and 'crooked'.

'Did anyone last night watch a thing called the debate? Man, that was a big one,' he told a fired-up crowd in the crucial swing state.

'Biden spent the entire week at Camp David resting, working, studying—he studied so hard he didn't know what the hell he was doing.'

'He got the debate rules he wanted, he got the date he wanted, at the network he wanted with the [moderators] he wanted.

'No amount of rest or rigging could defend his atrocious record'.

Trump added that the question is not if Biden can survive a 90-minute debate, but whether the country can survive another four years of him in the White House.

The presumptive Republican nominee then reeled off his greatest rally hits, and pointed out 'beautiful women' from North Carolina who had been to more than 170 of his rallies.

He compared the former Governor of Virginia Ralph Northam to Michael Jackson because he was involved in a blackface scandal.

Trump also discussed potential Biden replacements, and hinted that Michelle Obama would be a good choice if she wasn't polling so badly.

'A vote for Joe Biden is a vote for failure, surrender, and disaster for our country. A vote for your all-time favorite president, Donald J. Trump, is a vote for stopping Joe Biden's inflation and border invasion and for making America great again!'