President Biden’s performance in Thursday night’s debate quickly garnered attention from Democrats and liberal media figures, many of whom expressed concern over the president’s ‘weak’ performance and discussed talk of him dropping out of the race.

Shortly after the conclusion of the debate in Atlanta, Ga., a firestorm erupted with talk of Democrats replacing Biden as their party’s nominee in the 2024 presidential election.

One well-connected Democratic source told Fox News after the debate that the House and the Senate are Republican – for now, adding that ‘everyone is freaking out’ and that Biden ‘needs to go.’

But there is ‘no way they replace him unless he agrees,’ the source said.

Former Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill, a Democrat, said during an appearance on MSNBC after the debate that Biden ‘failed’ to show Americans he was ‘up to the job at his age.’

‘My job now is to be really honest. Joe Biden had one thing he had to do tonight, and he didn’t do it. He had one thing he had to accomplish and that was reassure America that he was up to the job at his age. And he failed at that tonight,’ she said.

‘Now, does that mean my phone blowing up with senators and campaign operatives and donors, big donors from all over the country, does that mean Joe Biden is not gonna be the candidate? I don’t know that. I think we’ll know a lot more in a few weeks,’ McCaskill said.

McCaskill said her heart was ‘breaking’ after Biden’s performance and that there were ‘a lot of people who watched [the debate] and felt terrible for Joe Biden.’

The talk about Democrats weighing their options on who will serve as the party’s presidential nominee was also amplified by John King, CNN’s chief national correspondent, who said after the debate, ‘Right now, as we speak, there is a deep, a wide, and a very aggressive panic in the Democratic Party.’

‘It started minutes into the debate, and it continues right now,’ King added. ‘It involves party strategists, it involves elected officials, it involves fundraisers. And they’re having conversations about the president’s performance, which they think was dismal, which they think will hurt other people … and they’re having conversations about what they should do about it.’

The conversations, King said, were about how to address the issue and whether there should be talk about asking Biden to step aside due to his ‘terrible’ performance.

King said the conversations included whether Democrats should go to the White House and ‘ask the president to step aside’ or whether prominent Democrats should ‘go public’ with a call for the president to drop out of the race because his performance ‘was so terrible.’

In a social media post, Nicholas Kristof, a New York Times opinion columnist who attempted to seek the Democratic Party’s nomination for governor of Oregon in 2022, suggested now is the time for Biden to withdraw from the race.

Several other liberal media figures also weighed in on Biden’s performance, including MSNBC host Joy Reid, who said she heard from many Democrats who were ‘concerned’ about Biden’s ‘weak’ performance.

Reid told viewers after the debate that her phone ‘never stopped buzzing throughout’ as Democrats approached near ‘panic.’

Describing those who she was texting with as ‘Obama-world people’ and ‘Democrats,’ Reid said, ‘The people who were texting with me were very concerned about President Biden seeming extremely feeble, seeming extremely weak.’

Chuck Todd, NBC’s chief political analyst, said he had been ‘talking to a lot of leaders in the Democratic Party, [elected members], coalition leaders, there’s a lot of panic about this performance.’

‘Not like, ‘Oh this is recoverable,’ it’s more of a … ‘He’s gotta step aside’ – there’s a lot of that chatter,’ Todd said. ‘This is about as bad of a performance that Biden could’ve delivered if his goal was to try to sort of calm the waters among Democrats…’

Despite the reports of replacement chatter among Democrats, California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who many pundits have touted as a possible replacement for Biden should things go awry for Democrats ahead of the 2024 election, insisted the party’s ‘nominee is Joe Biden.’

‘I’m looking forward to voting for him in November,’ Newsom told reporters. ‘He’s going to be our nominee.’

President Biden spoke to reporters following Thursday night’s CNN debate and expressed the belief that he performed well against former President Trump.

‘I think we did well,’ Biden told reporters at an Atlanta area Waffle House when asked how he performed. 

When asked if he had any concerns about his performance, the president said, ‘No it’s hard to debate a liar, New York Times pointed how he lied 26 times. Big lies.’

Biden was then asked if he was suffering from a cold, which the campaign revealed following the debate performance where many expressed concerns about the sound of Biden’s voice.

‘I am sick,’ Biden said.

Biden’s comments come after it was revealed that a flash poll conducted by CNN following the debate showed viewers believe Trump soundly defeated Biden.

The majority of users on social media seemingly agreed that Biden lost the debate including some liberal pundits.

Biden’s camp has put out positive reviews of his performance.

‘Joe, you did such a good job!’ First Lady Jill Biden said to the president on a stage after the debate. ‘You answered every question. You knew all the facts.’

‘It was a slow start but a strong finish,’ VP Kamala Harris told Fox News Digital after the debate.

The president heads to Raleigh, North Carolina, where he’ll hold a rally Friday in a state he lost to Trump by a razor-thin margin in 2020.

Fox News Digital’s Paul Steinhauser contributed to this report

Republicans were in full celebratory mode following Thursday’s debate between former President Trump and President Biden.

Multiple elected officials took to social media following the debate to celebrate what they described as a ‘resounding victory’ for Trump, and a ‘disastrous’ performance by Biden.

‘Three things are clear: America was and is better under a Trump Administration, Biden is unfit to be in office and the people in his orbit should be ashamed of propping him up, Trump dominated. There can’t possibly be a second debate,’ South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, who is widely believed to be a frontrunner on Trump’s VP shortlist, wrote in a post on X, formerly Twitter. 

Alabama Sen. Katie Britt wrote, ‘Congratulations to President Trump on his resounding victory in tonight’s Presidential Debate. The Biden-Harris experiment has failed. It’s time to return strength to the White House,’ while North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, another possible VP pick, wrote Biden ‘offered no answers’ on the major problems facing Americans.

‘President Trump was clear, and he’s got the record to back it up! This debate was a knockout for Donald Trump,’ he added.

Republican National Committee (RNC) Chairman Michael Whatley called Trump’s debate performance ‘dominant,’ and said Biden ‘couldn’t even understand the questions.’

Another account linked to the RNC poked fun at Biden’s closing statement, writing, ‘Biden ends his disastrous and humiliating debate performance just as he began — rambling incoherently. He’s not only not playing with a full deck — he can’t even find the deck. SAD!’ 

Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., claimed Trump ‘proved’ he is the only candidate who can save the U.S., while Republican conservative firebrand and Arizona Senate candidate Kari Lake said ‘[Biden] is clearly unfit for this job. I think it’s time we bring back the President that coined the phrase, YOU’RE FIRED!’

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Former President Trump blasted President Biden in CNN’s presidential debate on Thursday for not firing any of the generals who oversaw the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan that left 13 U.S. soldiers dead. 

‘He was so bad with Afghanistan,’ Trump said during the CNN presidential debate on Thursday night. ‘It was such a horrible embarrassment. Most embarrassing moment in the history of our country that when Putin watched that and he saw the incompetence.’

‘He should have fired those generals like I fired the one that you mentioned and so he’s got no love lost but he should have fired those generals,’ Trump continued. ‘No general got fired for the most embarrassing moment in the history of our country, Afghanistan, where we left billions of dollars of equipment behind. We lost 13 beautiful soldiers and 38 soldiers were obliterated.’

Trump went on to say that the world is ‘blowing up’ under President Biden.

‘You ever heard so much malarkey in my whole life?’ Biden responded.

Biden went on to defend his pullout of Afghanistan and blasted Trump for his positions on the war in Ukraine and comments made about Russian President Vladimir Putin.

‘This guy hasn’t fired anybody,’ Trump said at another point in the debate.

‘He should have fired every military man that was involved with the Afghan horror show,’ Trump said. ‘The most embarrassing moment in the history of our country. He didn’t fire. Did you fire anybody? Did you fire anybody that’s on the border? That’s allowed us to have the worst border in the history of the world. Did anybody get fired for allowing 18 million people, many from prisons, many from mental institutions?’

Fox News Digital reached out to the Biden campaign for comment but did not receive a response.

President Biden’s age is viewed as much more of a liability than former President Donald Trump’s, according to a new poll conducted ahead of the CNN presidential debate on Thursday. 

While 81-year-old Biden is just three years older than Trump, who turned 78 this month, about 67% of Americans say Biden is too old to be president, nearly twice as many as the 37% who said the same for Trump, according to a Gallup poll released on Wednesday. 

The results of the poll, conducted June 2-23, following Trump’s conviction in the Manhattan hush money trial, are in line with prior Gallup polling showing that 31% of Americans are willing to vote for a presidential candidate over age 80, and 63% are willing to vote for a candidate over age 70.

In the June survey, Gallup said that half of respondents were asked whether each candidate is too old to be president, while the other half of respondents were asked whether they are concerned that each candidate is too old to be president. It showed that 59% were ‘very concerned’ about Biden’s age, versus 18% about Trump’s. 

‘When factoring in those who are ‘somewhat concerned,’ a combined 76% are concerned Biden is too old for the job, while 38% are concerned about Trump,’ Gallup said.

Gallup assessed that Biden’s age is not just a potential liability among Republicans and independents – majorities of whom say that he is too old and that they are very concerned about it – ‘but also among a sizable minority of Democrats.’ The poll found that 44% of Democrats say Biden is too old, and that 31% are very worried about it. 

Trump was 70 in 2017 when he took office, and Biden was 78 in 2021. 

Before them, Ronald Reagan had been the oldest U.S. president. He was 69 at the start of his presidency in 1981 and was 77 when he left office in 1989. 

A separate survey, the New York Times/ Siena College poll conducted June 20-25, also asked whether participants believed that Biden or Trump are too old to be an effective president. Its results released on Wednesday showed that a net percentage of 68% agreed that Biden is too old, while 39% said the same for Trump. 

With just over four months until Election Day, Thursday’s debate offers both candidates a rare potential to alter the trajectory of the race. 

Trump and Biden have not been on the same stage or even spoken since their last debate weeks before the 2020 presidential election. Trump skipped Biden’s inauguration. 

Thursday’s broadcast on CNN will be the earliest general election debate in history. It is the first-ever televised general election presidential debate hosted by a single news outlet after both campaigns ditched the bipartisan Commission on Presidential Debates, which had organized every one since 1988.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

House GOP leaders plan to take up a bill enhancing protections against noncitizens voting sometime in July, Fox News Digital has learned.

House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., is circulating a memo within his House GOP conference, obtained by Fox News Digital, arguing the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) Act is necessary. After this Friday, Congress is on a weeklong recess for Independence Day, returning July 8.

Johnson unveiled the bill, originally pushed by Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, alongside former President Trump in a high-profile press conference at Mar-a-Lago earlier this year.

The 22-page report argues there is ‘irrefutable evidence’ that noncitizens have voted illegally in U.S. elections, placing blame with the 1993 National Voter Registration Act (NVRA).

‘The NVRA does not require states to ask for proof of citizenship when registering an individual to vote in federal elections. Rather, the NVRA relies on individuals to merely attest they are a citizen and eligible to vote. In 44 states, if an individual completes and signs the universal NVRA form (Form), then the state is required by federal law to register that person to vote,’ the memo reads.

Johnson’s document also argues that the Biden administration’s border policies have exacerbated the issue by making it possible for more people to illegally enter the U.S.

‘The Biden Administration’s efforts to dismantle border security, and related policies, have enabled millions of aliens to enter the country, violate our immigration laws, and exploit a system to obtain [a Social Security number],’ it reads.

It also points to reports that states like Massachussetts, Virginia and Ohio recently purged noncitizens from their voter rolls. 

According to the memo, Virginia removed nearly 1,500 people from its voter rolls since May 2023 due to ‘non-citizen status.’ Citing an Electoral Process Education Corp. report, the memo said 335 of those people have cast ballots in Virginia elections in the last four years. 

‘Earlier this year, in Massachusetts, Boston Election Department officials disclosed to the Public Interest Legal Foundation that the city had removed 70 non-citizens from the city’s election rolls,’ the document says.

Additionally, Ohio’s Republican Secretary of State recently ordered over 130 people to be removed from the state’s voter list, the memo says, adding, ‘Ohio law imposes a very high bar before a county board of elections can remove someone from the rolls due to noncitizenship.’

Democratic critics of the SAVE Act have argued that it is unnecessary because it is already illegal for noncitizens to vote in federal elections. 

The timing of the vote happening next month would be significant, coming less than six months before Trump’s White House rematch with President Biden.

Even if passed, however, it is highly unlikely to be taken up by the Democrat-controlled Senate.

Johnson said at Trump’s Palm Beach, Florida, home in April, ‘I’m going to announce to you today here standing alongside President Trump that we will do everything within our to ensure that we do have free and fair elections in this country.’ 

‘It’s the basis of who we are as a nation, and we owe that to the American people. And so what we’re going to do is introduce legislation to require that every single person who registers to vote in a federal election must prove that they’re an American citizen,’ the speaker said. ‘Our bill will establish new safeguards, will put us on par, by the way, with virtually every other democracy around the world that also prohibits noncitizen voting. And this is a critical thing for us to do at a very critical time. Our bill also will require states to remove noncitizens from their existing voter rolls.’

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.