Joe Biden interviewed by George Stephanopoulos for ABC News on July 5.Supplied/Getty Images
Joe Biden said he was “exhausted” when he stumbled through a debate against Donald Trump, but the sitting president once again added to his list of verbal blunders Friday as he sought to allay concerns about his age in a televised interview that will be intensely scrutinized for what it shows about his acuity.
In a half-hour conversation with ABC News host George Stephanopoulos, Mr. Biden said he was suffering from such a bad cold last week that he sought medical tests to see whether he had contracted a virus. He was told he had a cold, albeit one that left him “feeling terrible” as he stood on the debate stage.
“I just had a bad night. I don’t know why,” he said.
But asked whether he had rewatched his performance, he gave a less than definitive answer: “I don’t think I did, no.”
And his efforts to explain mistakes during the debate led Mr. Biden into more of the linguistic contortions that plagued his debate performance, making his mental and physical fitness one of the most acute issues of the presidential campaign four months out from the vote
“I prepared what I usually would do, sitting down, as I did – came back with foreign leaders or National Security Council – for explicit detail. And I realized about partway through that you know – all I get, quoted the New York Times had me down at 10 points before the debate. Nine now, or whatever the hell it is.”
From there, however, Mr. Biden offered a lucid litany of his accomplishments in office, arguing that this week’s Supreme Court decision on presidential immunity underscores the importance of character in selecting the next occupant of the White House.
He rejected, however, the idea of submitting to an independent neurological and cognitive examination, saying each of his days as President amounts to such a test. “Not only am I campaigning, I’m running the world,” he said.
Mr. Biden said he simply does not believe polls that show his plunging favour among the electorate, particularly in key battleground states. “I don’t buy that,” he said, adding: “All pollsters I talk to tell me it’s a toss-up.”
He rebuffed, too, the idea that he is running against Mr. Trump to advance his own personal interests.
“I’ve convinced myself of two things: I’m the most qualified person to beat him. And I know how to get things done,” he said.
In an interview with ABC News on Friday, Joe Biden says only the 'Lord Almighty' could oust him from the presidential election as he addressed his debate performance against Donald Trump.
Reuters
Mr. Biden suggested he might be willing to step aside “if the Lord Almighty comes down and tells me that.” But he predicted that senior Democrats will not urge his departure, despite signs some are preparing to do just that. “It’s not going to happen,” Mr. Biden said.
It’s not clear the interview will do much to arrest his slide in those polls, or to quiet those critics from within his own party whose demands for him to step aside have grown more insistent.
For Mr. Biden, Friday marked a critical day of response, including in an address to a campaign rally in Wisconsin, where the President rarely strayed from prepared comments on a teleprompter. The closely-watched event, held before a few hundred supporters in a middle-school gymnasium, was intended to make a convincing case that he remains fit for office, and Mr. Biden acknowledged he is being urged to abandon his campaign (even as he made several mistakes, at one point pledging to beat Mr. Trump “in 2020.”)
“There’s been a lot of speculation – what’s Joe going to do? Is he going to stay in the race? Is he going to drop out? What’s he going to do?
“Here’s my answer: I am running and going to win again,” he said
“I’m not letting one 90-minute debate wipe out 3.5 years of work,” he added.
In that June 27 exchange, watched by tens of millions of Americans, Mr. Biden failed to complete sentences, badly mixed up figures and spent long moments standing slack-jawed.
Mr. Trump has for years mocked his opponent as “Sleepy Joe.” The debate, however, brought Mr. Biden a rush of reproval from those previously on his side.
James Clyburn, a South Carolina representative who has been a key supporter of the President, suggested this week, in comments to CNN, a “mini-primary” in advance of the Democratic National Convention in August, where Mr. Biden had expected a coronation as presidential candidate.
On Friday, at least 168 wealthy Democratic donors signed their names to a letter delivered to the White House asking Mr. Biden to withdraw, including a scion of the Walmart family fortune, a former NFL commissioner and notable figures from hedge funds, academia and private equity.
“It is time to cement your legacy by passing the torch – just as George Washington did,” the letter said, according to a copy obtained by The Washington Post. The newspaper also reported efforts by Sen. Mark Warner to recruit other Senate Democrats to call on Mr. Biden to step aside. Mr. Warner is a senior political figure who is vice chair of the Senate Democratic Caucus and chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee.
The calls have grown more insistent as Mr. Biden’s public appearances have brought more fumbled facts and unintended phrasing. In a pair of radio interviews this week, Mr. Biden said he was proud of his record as “the first Black woman to serve with a Black president,” while calling Mr. Trump “one of our colleagues.”
Mr. Trump on Friday posted to social media a series of favourable public-opinion results, including one that showed his largest-ever lead in a Wall Street Journal poll.
Barbara Ann Perry, a presidential historian at the University of Virginia, recounted watching Mr. Biden in action at a White House holiday reception in late 2022. While giving a toast to the group, he appeared to be battling fatigue, Prof. Perry said. But he livened up once he started working the room.
“He seemed a little tired on the stage,” she told The Globe and Mail. But “as he started talking to people, I could almost see 10 to 15 years slide off his face,” she added. “He was glad-handing people, he was smiling, his eyes were twinkling, he was bending down to talk to kids.”
Such episodes are common for Mr. Biden: He has never been a strong public speaker, as evidenced by years of mangled quotations and uneven performances in debates and speeches during the 2020 Democratic primaries. He nonetheless appears to enjoy the retail-politics, glad-handing aspect of his job.
The question is whether his debate performance was simply Mr. Biden being Mr. Biden or evidence of more serious cognitive decline.
To Prof. Perry, the debate performance looked particularly bad. “He doesn’t seem like that same person from a year and a half ago to me.”
While previous presidents have had poor debate nights, none has risen to the level of bad that Mr. Biden has, she said. When Barack Obama muffed his first tilt against Mitt Romney in 2012 or George W. Bush was bested by John Kerry in 2004, it didn’t spark larger concerns about their cognitive states.
“The public didn’t worry that Barack Obama was collapsing mentally and physically,” she said. “With Bush, people went, ‘oh, Kerry is just a sharper debater.’”
But Mr. Biden’s debate performance built on worries about mental competence in the presidential race that were already top of mind for voters. Omaha Democratic voter Dawn Fortier said her worries about Mr. Biden are so great that she would gladly vote for someone else, were it not for her even greater anxieties about the return of Mr. Trump.
Both men “are older than dirt and it concerns me. If either one passed in office, what happens to our country?” Ms. Fortier said. “I wish there was a young person that would be willing to take on the job of being president.”