MADISON, Wis. (AP) — President Joe Biden, battling his imperiled re-election, used a highly anticipated television interview to repeatedly reject an independent medical examination that will show voters he is prepared for an additional term, while attributing his disastrous debate performance to a “bad incident” and saying there was “no indication of a serious condition.”
Biden, 81, got through Friday's 22-minute interview with none major blunders that will further damage his endangered candidacy, but concerns about his age and suitability for an additional 4 years and his ability to defeat Donald Trump in November don’t appear to have been fully dispelled.
On Saturday, one other Democratic lawmaker joined nearly half a dozen in calling for Biden to not run again. Rep. Angie Craig of Minnesota said that given what she saw and heard in the talk and Biden's “lack of a forceful response” afterward, he should step down “and make way for a new generation of leaders.”
Craig won one in every of the Democrats' most significant suburban victories within the 2018 midterm elections and will function a barometer for the districts that were crucial for Biden in 2020.
The interview put Biden in a standoff with a major faction of his party 4 months before Election Day and just weeks before the Democratic National Convention. The drawn-out spectacle may benefit Biden's efforts to remain within the race by limiting the party's options to exchange him, nevertheless it could also distract from the necessary effort to portray the 2024 election as a referendum on Trump.
During the interview, Biden stressed that he is not any more frail than he was firstly of his presidency. He said he’s “continuously being checked” by his personal doctors they usually “don't hesitate to tell me” if something is fallacious.
“Can I run the 100 in 10 seconds? No. But I'm still in good shape,” Biden said.
As for the talk, “I didn’t listen to my instincts in preparing,” Biden said.
Biden said Trump's interruptions – from just a couple of feet away – had thrown him off balance: “I realized that even when I was answering a question and they turned off his microphone, he was still yelling, and I let that distract me. I don't blame him. But I realized that I just wasn't in control.”
Biden spoke into the void at times in the course of the interview, which ABC said was broadcast in full and without edits. At one point he began to clarify his performance at the talk, then he talked a couple of New York Times poll, then pivoted to the lies Trump spread in the course of the debate. Biden also talked about how the “red wave” within the midterm elections wouldn’t occur until 2020, not 2022.
Asked how he could still turn the race around, Biden said a key to doing so can be large, high-energy rallies just like the one he held in Wisconsin on Friday. When reminded that Trump repeatedly draws larger crowds, the president launched a pointy attack on his opponent.
“Trump is a pathological liar,” Biden said, accusing Trump of botching the federal government's response to the COVID pandemic and failing to create jobs. “Have you ever seen anything Trump did that benefited someone else and not himself?”
The interview, coupled with a weekend campaign within the battleground states of Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, was a part of Biden's rigorous effort to course-correct after his rocky debate performance. But frustrations inside the party proceed to simmer: An influential Democratic senator is working on an initiative to get the president to drop out of the race, and Democrats are quietly chatting about what they’d do next if the president drops out — or what it might mean if he stays within the race.
“It's President Biden's decision whether he stays in the race or not. The voters are choosing our candidate and they elected him,” said California Rep. Ro Khanna, a member of the Biden campaign's national advisory board, which serves as a gathering of his key surrogates. “Now he has to prove to those voters that he's up to the job, and that's going to take more than just this one interview.”
A Democrat who observed the event said Biden was still uncertain even under controlled conditions and predicted that more votes would call for him to drop out of the race.
Still, Biden was eager in Wisconsin to prove his ability to serve one other term. Asked if he would suspend his campaign, he told reporters he was “completely ruling it out” and was “positive” he could stay in office for an additional 4 years. At a rally before lots of of supporters, he acknowledged his underperformance in the talk but insisted, “I'm running, and I'm going to win again.”
While private angst has been high amongst Democratic lawmakers, donors and strategists for the reason that debate, most within the party are holding back on public criticism, waiting to see if the president can restore trust together with his weekend trip and his manner of conducting the interview. Top Biden campaign officials sent text messages to lawmakers urging them to not comment publicly and to present the president a likelihood to reply, in accordance with a Democrat who was granted anonymity to debate the situation.
To that end, Sen. Mark Warner has been reaching out to his fellow senators this week to debate whether to induce Biden to drop out of the race, in accordance with three people aware of the trouble who requested anonymity to debate private conversations. The Virginia Democrat's moves are notable because he’s chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee and is seen as a lawmaker who supports Biden and works with colleagues from each parties. Warner's efforts were first reported by The Washington Post.
The strategy remains to be up within the air. One of the people aware of Warner's efforts said there are enough Democrats within the Senate concerned about Biden's ability to run for reelection to take motion, although there isn’t any consensus yet on what that plan would appear to be. Some of the Democratic senators could meet as early as Monday to debate find out how to proceed.
Top Democrats on House committees plan to satisfy virtually on Sunday to debate the situation, in accordance with an individual aware of the meeting who was granted anonymity to comment.
At least five Democrats within the House of Representatives have called for Biden to withdraw as a candidate. Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey stopped wanting going that far, but said in a fastidiously worded statement on Friday that Biden must now make a call about “the best path forward.”
“I urge him to listen to the American people and carefully consider whether he remains our best hope of defeating Donald Trump,” Healey said.
In the interview, Biden was asked how he could possibly be persuaded to drop out of the race. He laughed and replied, “If the Lord Almighty came down and told me to, I could do that.”
There were also some signs of discontent at Biden's campaign rally on Friday. One person on stage waved an indication that read “Pass the torch, Joe” because the president got here out. His motorcade was also greeted at the center school by some individuals who urged him to maneuver on.
But Rebecca Green, a 52-year-old environmental scientist from Madison, found Biden's energy reassuring. “We were just waiting for him to come back strong and combative, like we know him to be.”
Many Democratic lawmakers hearing from their constituents at home in the course of the holiday week are deeply frustrated and divided over whether Biden should stay or go. Unofficially, debates flared amongst House Democrats this week as word spread that a few of them were writing public letters urging the president to drop out of the race.
Biden seems to have drawn his family closer to him while attempting to prove that he remains to be the most effective option for the Democrats.
Hunter Biden's ubiquitous presence within the West Wing for the reason that debate has turn into an uncomfortable dynamic for a lot of aides, say two Democrats near the White House who requested anonymity to debate the sensitive matter.
For lots of our staff, the sight of Hunter Biden taking up a bigger role in advising his father just weeks after his conviction on a gun charge was disturbing and a questionable decision, they said.
At a unexpectedly convened meeting with greater than 20 Democratic governors on Wednesday evening, Biden acknowledged that he must get more sleep and limit evening events so he might be rested for his job. To explain these comments, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre stressed that Biden works “around the clock” but he “also recognizes the importance of finding balance and taking care of yourself.”
Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear, who attended the meeting, said Biden “certainly talked to us about complicated issues.”
“But on the other hand, this is something where he not only has to reassure the Democratic governors, but he has to reassure the American people,” Beshear said.
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Kim reported from Washington. Associated Press writers Todd Richmond in Madison, Joey Cappelletti in Saugatuck, Mich., Dylan Lovan in Louisville, Ky., and Will Weissert, Zeke Miller, Mary Clare Jalonick, Aamer Madhani, Lisa Mascaro and Josh Boak in Washington contributed to this report.
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