President Biden wobbled through a 22-minute interview with ABC anchor George Stephanopoulos Friday, showcasing the challenges of pushing back on mounting worries about his political viability. The same problems that dogged him in last week’s debate came up again during the conversation.
The 81-year-old Biden gave multiple reasons for his lackluster performance at the first presidential debate with Donald Trump last month, saying he was “sleeping” and had a “(bad) cold.” He also said he allowed himself to be “thrown off” by a Trump comment and couldn’t recall if had seen video of his own collapse.
But he likened what was a run of gaffes in the CNN debate stage back in Atlanta June 27 as “a bad night” not any kind of existential turn but did shy away from saying that the performance proved how sharp he remained, refusing to take a cognitive test barring it came under independent call.
“Look, I have a cognitive test every single day,” Biden said. “Every day, I’ve had tests. Everything I do. You know, not only am I campaigning, I’m running the world. And that’s not — it sounds like hyperbole, but we are the central nation of the world.”
But when Stephanopoulos asked if Biden had watched the debate afterwards, he responded “I don’t believe I did.”
Biden pushed back on Stephanopoulos throughout the interview. The president challenged the idea that his approval rating is as low as 36%, based on public polling, and pointed to the turnout earlier in the day at a middle school gymnasium just across town where he drew hundreds of people.
“All the pollsters I talk to tell me it’s a toss-up,” Biden said, insisting, “I don’t believe that’s my approval rating, that’s not what our polls show.”
Calls for the president to step aside – including from The New York Times and The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, don’t seem to have impacted Biden’s outlook on his own presidential race.
In addition to media outlets, Representative Lloyd Doggett (D-TX) was the first House Democrat to demand that Biden drop out, with other top Democrats putting pressure on their own party members in recent days.
One Democratic source who watched the interview told The Post that it was like seeing someone “treading water in the deep end.”
Similar to the debate, Biden left long pauses and rambled without a clear point throughout the interview.
“The whole way I prepared, nobody’s fault, mine. Nobody’s fault but mine. I — I prepared what I usually would do sitting down as I did come back with foreign leaders or National Security Council for explicit detail. And I realized partway through that, you know, all — I get quoted the New York Times had me down ten points before the debate, nine now or whatever the hell it is. The fact of the matter is, what I looked at is that he also lied 28 times. I couldn’t — I mean, the way the debate ran, not my fault, nobody else’s fault, no one else’s fault.”
Biden later said that during the debate, Trump “was still shouting and I let it distract me. I just wasn’t in control,” he said.
After the interview aired, longtime Barack Obama campaign strategist David Axelrod tweeted that Biden ” is rightfully proud of his record. But he is dangerously out-of-touch with the concerns people have about his capacities moving forward and his standing in this race. Four years ago at this time, he was 10 points ahead of Trump. Today, he is six points behind.”
Biden’s sit down with Stephanopoulos was seen as a crucial moment in his re-election bid, coming after several weeks of intense scrutiny on the state and future of Biden’s political career following recent declines in polling support for the Democratic incumbent.
