President Joe Biden’s first interview after his disastrous debate showing was a preview of what is likely to happen if Democratic leaders go to the White House to persuade him to stand down in the 2024 election.
“If the Lord Almighty came down and said, ‘Joe, get out of the race,’ I’d get out of the race. But the Lord Almighty’s not coming down,” Biden said.
That doesn’t bode well for Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA), House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), or even former President Barack Obama.
George Stephanopoulos conducted the interview for ABC News like it was an intervention. The former Clinton White House communications director almost pleaded with Biden to consider whether he was misjudging his ability to win the race and his fitness to continue to serve in office until age 86.
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Biden did not lose his cool. But he mostly swatted away every concern about his age, health, and electability by citing times he proved doubters wrong in the past, praising his record in the Oval Office, or trying to shift the focus to former President Donald Trump.
Although Biden once again acknowledged he did poorly in the debate, he disputed that he was trailing Trump or had a low job approval rating. “That’s not what our polls show,” Biden said in response to the 36% approval figure Stephanopoulos cited. “All the pollsters I talk to tell me it’s a toss-up,” he said of the race with Trump.
Biden also insisted his life in the White House and on the campaign trail was the only cognitive test he needed. “Watch me between — there’s a lot of time left in this campaign,” he said.
If prominent Democrats thought they were going to be able to coax him out of the race easily in favor of Vice President Kamala Harris, Biden cast considerable doubt on that Friday. “It’s not going to happen,” Biden told Stephanopoulos, insisting the Democratic leaders he talked to wanted him to stay in.
“There’s been a lot of speculation: What’s Joe going to do? Is he going to stay in the race?” Biden told a crowd in the swing state of Wisconsin earlier in the day. “Well, here’s my answer: I am running and going to win again.”
“Some folks don’t seem to care who you voted for,” he said. “Well, guess what? They’re trying to push me out of the race. Well, let me say this as clearly as I can: I’m staying in the race. I’ll beat Donald Trump.” He briefly got the election years mixed up.
The debate highlighted concerns about the 81-year-old’s fitness for office. Leading Democrats then viewed the White House and the campaign as being slow to do damage control afterward, taking days to make contact with party leaders to reassure them.
Biden continued to speak with a weak voice in his Friday interview and complained of a severe cold interfering with his recovery from foreign travel but overall did better answering questions and following his train of thought.
But even before the debate, many Democrats worried Biden and his team were misreading the dynamics of the race. The president is seen as being too insular, too dependent on an inner circle committed to the idea that the presidential election will be more about Trump than Biden.
“The president 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,” former top Obama adviser David Axelrod wrote on X after the interview. “Four years ago at this time, he was 10 points ahead of Trump. Today, he is six points behind.”
Trump still came within 43,000 votes in three states of topping Biden in the Electoral College in 2020 and winning a second consecutive term. The presumptive Republican nominee has led for most of this cycle and is now up by 3.3 points nationally in the RealClearPolitics polling average, which includes some predebate polls.
The odds are increasing that Democrats may have to consider fighting Biden for the nomination at the convention in Chicago next month. This would require a massive shift among the pledged delegates who are committed to Biden, though a Democratic lawmaker reminded party activists they can choose other alternatives under the rules.
There may be enough concern among delegates to make a convention coup a live possibility if Biden neither withdraws nor shows serious signs of improvement in the coming weeks. But Democrats passed on a competitive primary process earlier this year because they feared it would only further weaken Biden in the general election rather than produce a different nominee.
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Democrats are now struggling with that dilemma ahead of the convention.
“The best way forward right now is a decision for the President to make. Over the coming days, I urge him to listen to the American people and carefully evaluate whether he remains our best hope to defeat Donald Trump,” Gov. Maura Healey (D-MA) said in a statement. “Whatever President Biden decides, I am committed to doing everything in my power to defeat Donald Trump.”
