US President Joe Biden speaks during a campaign rally in Madison, Wisconsin, on July 5, 2024.
Saul Loeb | AFP | Getty Images
President Joe Biden insisted Friday that his damaging debate performance against former President Donald Trump was just a “bad night” and not a sign of a more serious health condition.
“I was exhausted,” Biden said ABC NewsGeorge Stephanopoulos, in his first face-to-face TV interview since his frantic and disjointed debate last week.
“I didn’t listen to my instincts, in terms of preparation, and [had] a bad night,” said Biden, who also referred to his performance as a “bad episode.”
When Stephanopoulos noted that Biden had returned from an overseas foreign policy trip to Europe about 11 days before the debate and spent six days at Camp David beforehand, Biden responded, “I was sick, I felt terrible.”
Asked if he watched the debate later, Biden paused briefly, then said, “I don’t think I did, no.” He has repeatedly said that his performance is the fault of “nobody [but] mine.”
Biden also refused to entertain the idea of taking a cognitive or neurological test. “I take a complete neurological test every day,” Biden said, referring to the rigors of the presidency. When Stephanopoulos pressed him on why he hadn’t done any cognitive assessment, the president replied: “No, no one said he had to.”
The interview came the same day that Biden defiantly dismissed a growing chorus of Democrats, including top donors and allies, who are urging the 81-year-old incumbent to withdraw from the race.
Biden, under aggressive questioning from Stephanopoulos about whether he is capable of either defeating Trump in November or serving another four years in the White House, said he believes he is up to both tasks.
“I’m running again because I think I have a better understanding of what needs to be done,” Biden said in the 23-minute interview.
He appeared to rule out any possibility of a change of heart, even in a scenario where party leaders and close allies ask him to step aside.
“I mean, if the Lord Almighty came down and said, ‘Joe, get out of the fight,’ I would get out of the fight,” he said. “The Lord Almighty does not come down.”
Biden said he has spoken after the debate with Democratic leaders who have not told him to withdraw.
But many Democratic lawmakers are still considering their next steps. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., is holding a virtual meeting Sunday with top Democrats on the House committees, three sources told NBC News. The team is expected to focus on Biden, one of those sources told NBC.
Fewer than half a dozen House Democrats have called on Biden to drop out of the race so far, but that number could increase over the weekend.
The president’s remarks to Stephanopoulos echoed his earlier comments on the campaign trail that day.
“I’m going to run and I’m going to win again,” Biden told a crowd of supporters during a speech in Madison, Wisconsin.
“They’re trying to push me out of the race,” Biden told the crowd. “Well, let me say it as plainly as I can: I’m staying in the fight.”
Biden told reporters on an airport tarmac after the campaign event that he had spoken to “at least 20” members of Congress who are “telling me to stay in the race.”
Biden’s decision could set the campaign on a path of increasing tension with some of its top allies and donors who, prompted by concerns about Biden’s health and abilities, have called for a new candidate to lead the Democratic Party in the November election.
While Biden sounded consistently stronger and clearer in Friday’s remarks and interview than in last week’s debate, he still occasionally fumbled or fumbled certain words and phrases.
Frustration is growing among Democrats
On Capitol Hill, Democratic Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, a longtime Biden ally, launched a new effort to convene Democratic senators next week to discuss Biden’s path forward, NBC News reported.
Asked on the pitch about Warner’s effort, the president dismissed it. Warner, he said, “is the only one thinking about it. No one else called me to do it.”
On Thursday, the Disney heir and longtime Democratic donor Abigail Disney told CNBC that she will withhold donations until Biden retires.
On Wednesday, a panel of business leaders was convened by the Pro-Democracy Leadership Now Project urged Biden to step aside.
The editorial boards of several newspapers, including the New York Times, have issued the same invitation.
Questions are now swirling about how an alternative candidate, such as Vice President Kamala Harris, could take Biden’s place as the new nominee.
The Trump campaign and the Republican Party, in turn, have begun to step up their attacks on Harris.
Grace he told CBS News on Tuesday, “Joe Biden is our candidate. We beat Trump once and we’re going to beat him again. Period.”
White House press secretary Karin Jean-Pierre held a chat with reporters who peppered her with questions about Biden’s capabilities during the flight to Madison.
“He said he had a bad conversation,” Jean-Pierre admitted. But “the 90 minutes should not overshadow his career, his three and a half [year] term as president”.
Biden, he added, “is decisive, strong [and] he thinks as clearly as before.”
But this steadfast front — supported by later statements of support from Democratic governors and other allies — has done little to assuage the concerns of Trump’s opponents.
Polls change
Biden, the oldest president ever to serve and would turn 86 at the end of his second term, was already struggling before the debate to boost his low approval ratings.
National polls have consistently shown a neck-and-neck race, but some polls have given Trump a lead in basic swing states that carried Biden to victory in 2020. Meanwhile, a large portion of voters have repeatedly expressed concerns about Biden’s age and physical condition for office.
Following the debate, polls from major media outlets including The New York Times and The Wall Street Journaleverything pointed to trump beating biden.
