Biden Makes A Startling Statement After Debate With Trump
President Joe Biden seemed to acknowledge his underwhelming debate performance on Thursday against former President Donald Trump but emphasized that he would not seek reelection if he didn't believe he could handle the demanding job.
Following his widely criticized and shaky debate performance, Biden addressed a crowd in Durham, North Carolina, during his first campaign rally since the debate. He admitted that the years have taken a toll on him, as reported by the Washington Times on Friday.
"I don’t walk as easily as I used to. I don’t talk as smoothly as I used to. I don’t debate as well as I used to. But I know what I do know. I know how to tell the Truth," the 81-year-old president stated. "I know how to get things done."
"I give you my word as a Biden, I would not be running again if I did not believe with all my heart and soul that I could do this job, because, quite frankly, the stakes are too high," he added.
The rally in North Carolina aimed to mitigate the fallout from the debate, which reinforced voters' doubts about his fitness for office. During the 90-minute face-off on CNN, Biden repeatedly froze, misspoke, and trailed off.
Aided by teleprompters and a speech filled with one-liners attacking Trump, the president revisited several themes that he struggled with during the debate.
White House officials attributed his low energy, weak voice, and coughing during the CNN debate to a lingering cold.
The media landscape reacted strongly to Biden's performance during the CNN Presidential Debate, with responses ranging from "dismal" critiques to outspoken calls from the left for him to withdraw from the 2024 race.
"I was on the phones for some of it after that became clear and there is a conversation happening inside Biden’s circle, and certainly a much more frank conversation happening inside the Democratic coalition," MSNBC’s Nicolle Wallace commented post-debate. "And I think there will be stories of a lot of concern about the performance tonight."
Politico relayed even more dire perspectives, quoting Democratic operatives saying, "Biden is toast." Another piece quoted an adviser to major Democratic donors who was even more blunt.
"Our only hope is that he bows out, we have a brokered convention, or dies," the donor adviser said. "Otherwise we are f**king dead."
"I mean it’s not great all around," a down-ballot Democrat running for statewide office told Politico. "Our president has a speech impediment, a cold, and is 81."
"No one expected a master class in debating from Joe Biden, but no one expected this nose dive," a senior aide to top Democratic officials told the publication. "He was bad on message, bad on substance, bad on counter-punching, bad on presentation, bad on non-verbals. There was no bright spot in this debate for him. The only bright spot is that this happened in June and not October."
CNN’s John King highlighted the "very aggressive panic in the Democratic Party" that started early in the debate.
"This was a game-changing debate in the sense that right now, as we speak, there is a deep, a wide, and a very aggressive panic in the Democratic Party. It started minutes into the debate and it continues right now," King said.
"It involves party strategists, it involves elected officials, it involves fundraisers. And they’re having conversations about the president’s performance, which they think was dismal, which they think will hurt other people down the party in the ticket, and they’re having conversations about what they should do about it," King added.