He downplayed it, denied it, dismissed it.
Biden’s first television interview since his lackluster performance in last week’s debate was billed as a prime-time opportunity to reassure Americans that the president still has the mettle to run for, win and hold the land’s highest office.
But Biden, his voice husky, spent much of the 22 minutes resisting a range of questions from ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos about his abilities, whether he had taken cognitive tests and where he stands in the polls.
The president on Friday didn’t have the same difficulty finishing his thoughts as he did in the debates, but at the same time, he is not the eloquent senator of his youth, nor the elder statesman his party trusted to defeat former President Donald J. Trump four years ago.
Instead, this was a crucial interview with an 81-year-old president who hardly sounds doubtful of himself, even as his own party grows increasingly doubtful.
Here are four points:
Biden has downplayed the debate as a one-time gaffe.
The interview was Biden’s longest unscripted public appearance since his poor debate performance, and the delay has left his allies in and outside of Congress baffled as to why the president remained behind closed doors or relied on a teleprompter for so long.
The eight-day delay has prompted lawmakers to call for Biden to step down, donors to urge the party to consider changing its nominee and also increased scrutiny of Biden’s every statement.
He remained defensive throughout, arguing that his past performance was enough proof of his future abilities.
“It was a horrible incident,” the president said. “There are no signs of any serious illness.”
He blamed it on fatigue, but also said he had felt unwell before the debate and doctors tested him for COVID-19, but what he did not agree to was a neurological test of any kind.
“Look, I take cognitive tests every day. I take that test every single day,” Biden said, suggesting the presidency is a kind of test in itself. He has repeatedly refused to take an independent exam.
The challenge for Biden is that he has little to say in a single interview to sort out the fallout from a stumbling performance watched live by tens of millions of Americans.
Biden performed better than he did in the debates, but is that enough?
Some of Biden’s answers were neither convincing nor coherent.
At the beginning of the interview, he was silent for a few seconds after Stephanopoulos asked him what happened a week ago.
“All the time that I’ve been preparing, it’s nobody’s fault, it’s nobody’s fault but me,” Biden finally said. “I prepared like I always do. I asked foreign leaders, I asked the National Security Council for details, I sat down and I spoke to them. And halfway through, I noticed that The New York Times quoted me as being 10 points behind before the debate. Now it’s nine, I don’t know what. And actually, what drew my attention was that he lied 28 times. The way the debate was conducted was not my fault, it’s nobody’s fault, it’s nobody’s fault.”
The answer was longwinded and circular, if not on par with the worst moments of the Atlanta debate, but it offered little clear or concise reassurance to party members squinting their eyes trying to imagine what a second debate with Trump in September might look like.
Biden certainly made some arguments in his favor against Trump.
But on the central issue at hand – his debate performance and what it suggests for the future – Biden didn’t have much to say beyond a brief asides about how Trump was “still yelling” after the microphone was cut and how he was distracted by it.
“It was just a bad night,” was Biden’s explanation. “I don’t know why.”
The interview was only the first test, but by no means the last.
The reality that some of the president’s allies have come to accept is that for the foreseeable future, nearly every interview, public appearance and statement Biden makes will face intense new scrutiny.
According to a post-debate poll by The New York Times/Siena College, roughly three-quarters of voters believe Biden is too old to be an effective president.
But Biden believes in his story as a man who triumphed over adversity: At a fundraiser two days after the debate, New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy called Biden “America’s Comeback Kid.”
Biden and his aides are still bitter about winning the 2020 presidential nomination after months of disappointment.
“Look, I remember them telling me the same thing in 2020,” he said, quoting his critics. “‘I can’t win. The polls show I can’t win.'”
Four years ago, Democrats were surprisingly quick to embrace Biden when he emerged as the front-runner to challenge Trump, but today’s polls paint a much murkier picture on this crucial issue.
What’s clear is that Biden is already trying to place himself in the league of past presidents, a flattering assessment he made citing anonymous economists and foreign policy experts.
“If I stop now, I’ll go down in history as a pretty successful president.”
Biden can’t go anywhere unless “God Almighty” intervenes.
Biden has set a very high bar for what it would take for him to step down.
“If the almighty God came down and told me, I might do it,” he said.
Biden repeatedly rejected the polls that Stephanopoulos cited to show he was weak, including his 36% approval rating. “Our polls don’t show that,” Biden said. He said “every pollster” he’s spoken to says the race is “50-50.”
Those were not the words of a man about to leave the stage.
“They’re trying to throw me out of the race. Let me be very clear: I’m going to stay in the race,” Biden said at a rally in Madison, Wisconsin on the same day.
When Stephanopoulos pressed Biden about the frustration among Democrats in Congress, Biden shrugged and said, “I’ve seen it in the reports.”
Perhaps the most insightful response came when Biden was asked how he would feel if Trump were to become president in January.
“I gave it my all and I feel like I did the best job I could, and that’s what this was about,” Biden said.
Of course, for Democrats who have warned that Trump poses an existential threat to the nation, the objective of this campaign is much simpler: to win.
