ABC News anchor George Stephanopoulos said on Tuesday, July 9, that Joe Biden will not be able to serve a second term. This comes just days after interviewing the president following the presidential debate, where Biden’s performance against Donald Trump was described as disastrous.
TMZ recorded Stephanopoulos in midtown Manhattan answering a passerby’s question about the commander in chief’s political future. “Do you think Biden should step down?” an anonymous person asked Stephanopoulos, 63. “You’ve talked to him more than anybody lately, haven’t you?”
“I don’t believe he can serve another four years,” Stephanopoulos said after a brief pause.
“Do you think he can’t serve another four years?” the questioner repeated. “Okay, that’s the answer.”
George Stephanopoulos expresses regret
But hours after the video was released, Stephanopoulos told PAC News in a statement that he regretted his comments. “I answered a question from a passerby today, and I should not have done so,” he said.
Meanwhile, ABC News said in a statement to the media that “George was expressing his own views and did not represent a position of ABC News.”
Biden’s meeting with Stephanopoulos raised concerns about his fitness to serve as president, as did his performance in the presidential debates. During the interview, Biden failed to address concerns about his cognitive fitness to serve, insisting that his frequent mistakes were simply “bad episodes.”
“Look, I take cognitive tests every day,” Biden told Stephanopoulos. “I take tests every single day. Everything that I do. You know, I don’t just run a campaign, I run the world. And this may sound like an exaggeration, but we are the center of the world.”
Regarding calls for him to withdraw from the race, Biden said in an interview, “If the Almighty came down and said, ‘Joe, get out of the race,’ I would get out of the race, but the Almighty isn’t coming down.”
