The president’s comments at Wednesday’s meeting came after Hawaii Gov. Josh Green (D-Hawaii), a longtime physician and emergency room veteran, asked about the president’s health during the meeting, which was an hour-long discussion with governors in which Biden sought to reassure them about his political standing, his health and his path to reelection.
Biden responded that he had undergone a medical check-up since last week’s presidential debate and was in good health. “It’s just my brain,” he replied, but staff quickly clarified they were joking, according to people briefed on the meeting.
“He was clearly joking, but then he said, ‘No kidding,'” said Jen O’Malley Dillon, Biden’s campaign chair.
Lack of sleep has offered another explanation for Biden’s stuttering and difficulty completing sentences during last Thursday’s debate, which the president blames on feeling unwell, jet lag, having numbers crammed into his head and not listening to his staff.
Three governors spoke to reporters emerging from Wednesday’s meeting to voice their support for Biden. Others issued statements and social media posts. The meeting was largely upbeat, according to attendees, but there were signs of continued confusion after the debate, with Biden stumbling over his words and having trouble finishing his sentences.
For example, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham (D-Minn.) and Gov. Janet Mills (D-Maine) told Biden they were worried they might lose their states, participants in the meeting said. Biden won New Mexico by 11 points and Maine by 9 points in 2020. Some details of the meeting were first reported by Politico and The New York Times.
In a radio interview Thursday morning, Biden acknowledged his poor performance in the debate but sought to focus on his own record as president and shift attention back to Republican front-runner Donald Trump, who Biden sees as a threat to fundamental American values.
“It was a terrible night,” he told the Wisconsin-based show “The Earl Ingram Show.” “I screwed up, I made mistakes. … I was onstage for 90 minutes. Look at what I’ve done in the last three and a half years.”
“We’re going to win this election,” Biden added. “We’re going to beat Donald Trump, just like we did in 2020. I’m going to beat him again.”
The president used the opportunity to cite some of the derogatory comments Trump has made about black voters, saying, “I’m sorry to get so worked up, but he’s just done horrible things to communities and his interest and concern for black and minority communities is on par with a man on the moon.”
Biden also noted that the interview aired on the Fourth of July, addressing what he sees as an existential threat to democracy. “We cannot allow this man to win,” he said. “It would be a disaster for America.”
In a separate interview with Andrea Lawful Sanders, a Black radio host in Philadelphia, Biden said the next president could appoint “at least two more justices, maybe more” to the Supreme Court. Asked what his message would be to voters who might be watching the election from the sidelines, he said, “If you don’t take action, the onus is on you.”
The Republican National Committee took a different approach to the Independence Day holiday, saying Wednesday: This year’s Fourth of July celebration will be the most expensive on record because of “Biden inflation,” with ground beef up 11 percent, bread up 7 percent and lemonade up 12 percent from last year, the Republican National Committee said, citing an American Agriculture Association report.
“The cause of inflation is Biden’s policies, and the American people know it,” the statement said.
But the Biden campaign tried to use the holiday to deflect attention from the president’s shaky performance in last week’s debate. Democrats attacked Trump as a wannabe king who would trample on the nation’s founding principles if he returns to the White House. “This Fourth of July, Donald Trump wants to make America a monarchy again,” the Biden campaign warned in an email.
The campaign has run an ad arguing that last week’s Supreme Court ruling granting presidential immunity gives Trump the power to rule alone.
“America was founded in rebellion against a king,” the ad chants, set to ominous music and footage of the Statue of Liberty shrouded in mist. “The king is already leading a rebellion and threatening to become a dictator ‘from day one.'”
Democratic leaders have long sought to frame the election as one between Biden and a would-be dictator who will destroy the country’s core values of freedom and democracy. They have pointed to Trump’s vows to target political opponents, his support for the Jan. 6 storming of the U.S. Capitol and his harsh rhetoric about immigrants.
The presidential debate suddenly shifted its focus to far more favorable territory for Trump, with leading Democrats and Republicans quickly embroiled in a dispute over Biden’s age (he’s 81, Trump 78) and his ability to campaign and serve another four years as president.
Against this backdrop, the White House has faced questions in recent days about whether it is willing to release more of Biden’s medical records.
White House press secretary Andrew Bates confirmed on Thursday that Biden had visited a doctor a few days after the debate, as the president had told governors. “The president was observed receiving medical attention for a cold and is doing well,” Bates said.
But White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre twice told reporters on Wednesday that the president has not had any medical checkups since his annual physical in February.
“We were able to speak to his physician about that, and the answer is no,” she said in response to a question. Administration officials said Thursday that she was referring to a full physical exam, and that his recent hospitalization did not include a battery of tests.
But when asked later in the briefing if he had seen a doctor to see if he had a cold, particularly in the lead-up to the debate, she still said no. “He doesn’t have it. He hasn’t seen a doctor,” she said. “It’s a cold, folks. It’s a cold. And we know that cold symptoms vary from person to person. We’ve all had colds. So he hasn’t seen a doctor.”
Biden’s top advisers have acknowledged in recent days that they have a limited time to reassure a broad base of Democrats that he is fit to be president or face intense pressure to resign. Thursday’s comments about Trump’s authoritarian rhetoric are part of a parallel effort to remind voters of the former president’s own weaknesses and paint him as “unpatriotic.”
Democratic National Committee Chairman Jaime Harrison warned in a holiday email that “the soul of the nation is at stake.”
“Will we vote for a president who believes in our democracy and our principles of justice, liberty and equality,” Harrison wrote, “or will we capitulate from day one to a would-be dictator who will put himself above our Constitution, our principles and the democracy we cherish?”
