Given their performances in both Iowa and New Hampshire, some are saying stick a fork in former Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., because they are both done.

Biden came in fourth in the Iowa caucuses and a distant fifth in New Hampshire, and Warren did only slightly better, finishing third and fourth, respectively. While the candidates were at least competitive in Iowa, and Warren did manage to finish ahead of Biden in both contests, neither reached double digits Tuesday in the Granite State.

Their dismal performance was enough to prompt John Ziegler, senior columnist for Mediaite, to say if the two Democrats really want to defeat President Donald Trump in November, they will drop out.

Now.

Saying there is “no longer time for patience,” Zeigler said Democrats need to act now, not that he expects them to heed his call — the desperation on display being a great indication of how weak the 2020 Democratic field truly is.

“If Democrats really want to beat President Donald Trump, some major moves have to be made immediately,” he wrote. “Specifically, Joe Biden (whom I have previously promoted as having the best chance to beat Trump), and Elizabeth Warren (whom I don’t believe would be likely to beat Trump) need to exit the race within days. If not sooner.”

Zeigler suggested that past precedent supports this point of view and that Biden and Warren “should be forced out of the race at this point.”

“In fact, it is absurd that there probably won’t be much media pressure for this to happen based simply on the results of Iowa and New Hampshire,” he said.

Considering that Warren is from neighboring Massachusetts, Zeigler said she should be held to a high standard in New Hampshire.

“Her feeble fourth or fifth-place finish there should be cast as a death sentence for her campaign, especially after a weak third in Iowa,” he observed.

Given that Biden was “a national frontrunner with 100% name recognition,” Zeigler said surviving anemic 4th or 5th place finishes in the first two contests is “ludicrous.”

“No one in the history of the current primary system has ever come close to winning a presidential nomination after such poor performances in Iowa and New Hampshire,” he noted.

Zeigler reasonably argues that Sen.Bernie Sanders, now the frontrunner, and former South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg “would be torn apart in a general election campaign against Trump.”

On the other hand, he proposes that Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., who finished a strong third in New Hampshire after a respectable showing in Iowa, “can indeed beat Trump.”

And this is where Biden and Warren come in, as the columnist said they are “blocking her ability to grow the incredible momentum from New Hampshire into a movement that can prevail in a long battle for the party’s nomination.”

“If Biden and Warren were to follow the lead of Mitt Romney’s impeachment vote and sacrifice themselves for the good of the nation (to be clear, both of them still have a theoretical shot at the nomination) by dropping out before they are officially declared dead, it would allow Democratic moderates, and those who prefer a female candidate, to unite behind Klobuchar,” he wrote.

Urging a nudge from Barack Obama to put “a little wind at her back,” and being the only female candidate, Zeigler opined that Klobuchar could emerge victorious in the Democratic primary.

Otherwise, he sees a three-person race, with Michael Bloomberg joining Sanders and Buttigieg, being able to fund his own campaign — Zeigler also suggested if Bloomberg is the nominee, it would likely ignite a third-party run, perhaps by Sanders.

Trump could only hope to see that happen.

“To be clear, I am not expecting Warren or Biden to make this sacrifice (though it may be the best way for each of them to save face), at least not in time for it to be effective. I am just providing one of the very few safe paths left for the country to be spared of four more years of Donald Trump as our president,” Zeigler concluded.

“Desperate times call for desperate measures,” he closed, “and whether Trump critics want to admit to it yet or not, we are now in a very perilous situation.”