He downplayed it, denied it, dismissed it.
President Joe 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 he still has what it takes to run for, win and hold the nation’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 didn’t have the trouble finishing his thoughts on Friday that he did in the debates, but he’s also not the eloquent senator he was as a youth, nor is he the elder statesman his party trusted to defeat former President Donald 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 Biden’s allies in and outside of Congress baffled as to why the president would remain behind closed doors and rely 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 increased scrutiny of Biden’s every statement.
The president remained defensive throughout, arguing that past performance should be enough to prove future capabilities. “It was a terrible event,” he said. “There was nothing to suggest anything serious.”
He blamed it on fatigue, but felt unwell before the debate and his doctor suggested he be tested 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, when Stephanopoulos asked what went wrong a week ago, Biden was silent for a few seconds. “All the time that I’ve been preparing, it’s nobody’s fault. It’s nobody’s fault but me,” he said.
Biden eventually said, “I prepared like I always do, met with foreign leaders and the National Security Council to go over the details, and somewhere along the way I noticed that The New York Times had quoted me before the debate as being 10 points down in the votes. Now it’s like 9, I don’t know what.”
In fact, I looked into it and he lied 28 times too. The way the debate went, it wasn’t my fault, it wasn’t anybody else’s fault, it wasn’t anybody else’s fault, I couldn’t have done it.”
The answer was roundabout, if not quite as bad as the worst moments of the Atlanta debate. But it offered little clear, concise reassurance to members of Biden’s party squinting to imagine what the second debate with Trump, scheduled for September, might look like. Biden did make some arguments against Trump and in his own favor.
But on the central issue at hand – the debate performance and what it suggests for the future – Biden didn’t have much to say beyond a brief digression about Trump “still yelling” after the microphone was turned off and how that was distracting. “It was just a bad night,” was Biden’s full 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 is buying into his narrative as “America’s Comeback Kid” who has risen to the challenge. New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy called Biden at a fundraiser two days after the debate.
Biden and those close to him are still bitter about winning the 2020 presidential nomination after being overlooked for months.
“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, citing anonymous economists and foreign policy experts and touting that “if I quit now, I’d go down in history as a pretty successful president.”
Biden can’t go anywhere unless “God Almighty” intervenes.
Biden set the bar very high for stepping down: “If the almighty God came down and told me to do it, I might do it,” he said.
Biden repeatedly rejected polls that showed him weak, such as the 36% approval rating cited by Stephanopoulos. “Our polls don’t show that,” Biden retorted. He said “every pollster” he’s spoken to says the race is “50-50.”
Those were not the words of a man ready to walk off the stage. “They’re trying to throw me out of the race. Let me be very clear: I’m staying in the race,” Biden said at a rally in Madison, Wisconsin, earlier in the 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.
“As long as I’ve done my best and I’ve done the best job I can, I’ll feel like that’s what this election is about,” Biden said.
Of course, for Democrats who have warned that Trump poses an existential threat to the nation, the goal of this campaign is much simpler: to win.
