Sen. Chris Murphy: 'It was a mistake' for Democrats to let Biden stay in the race

Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., on Sunday said "it was a mistake" for Democrats to allow former President Joe Biden to remain in the 2024 presidential race for as long as he did.

Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., said Sunday “it was a mistake” for Democrats to allow Joe Biden to remain in the 2024 presidential race for as long as he did, echoing recent comments from other Democrats as the party reckons with fallout from new reporting about the then-president’s mental acuity.

“By 2024, the American people had decided that they wanted somebody new. They wanted somebody younger,” Murphy told NBC News’ “Meet the Press.”

“And it was a mistake,” the senator said. “It was a mistake for Democrats to not listen to the voters earlier and set up a process that would have gotten us in a position where we could have been more competitive that fall.”

Murphy’s comments come just days before the release of “Original Sin,” a book by Axios’ Alex Thompson and CNN’s Jake Tapper that includes interviews with people in Biden’s orbit who say they saw his mental state decline while he was president.

It also comes after Axios published the full interview between Biden and special counsel Robert Hur, who investigated whether Biden improperly stored classified documents following his time as vice president in the Obama administration.