Joe Biden will not give up. In an interview on the ABC channelFriday, July 5, the American president, candidate for re-election, stubbornly and sometimes laboriously defended his mental acuity and his ability to govern the country for a second term. “No one is more qualified than me” to “win” the election, affirmed the 81-year-old leader during this interview of about twenty minutes, denying the reality of the polls which place him in clear difficulty facing Donald Trump.
In his exchange with journalist George Stephanopoulos, crucial to his continued candidacy, the president repeatedly dodged questions about whether his physical and mental health had deteriorated during his term. He also did not commit to undergoing independent medical evaluations, saying that being president was like taking “a cognitive test every day.”
But it is his cognitive abilities that have been the subject of heated discussions since his disastrous debate against Donald Trump on Thursday, June 27. When asked about his poor performance, the president repeated that he was “sick.” “I really didn’t feel well,” assured Joe Biden, referring to a bad cold and his exhaustion. When asked if he had revised his performance, he responded with these strange words: “I don’t think so.”
Calls for withdrawal
During his nearly 25-minute interview, the American president tried to demonstrate his leadership skills. “Not only am I campaigning, I’m running the world,” he said. “It sounds exaggerated, but for example, today, before I came, I spoke to Prime Minister Netanyahu, to the new British Prime Minister, I’m facing Putin. There’s not a day that goes by that I don’t make these decisions, every day.” Will that be enough to reassure Democrats, who are increasingly calling for him to throw in the towel? “The president is proud of his record, and rightly so. But he seems dangerously out of touch with people’s concerns about his ability to move forward and his position in this campaign,” he said. X the highly influential David Axelrod, former strategist for Barack Obama.
The Democratic candidate therefore still has a lot to do to erase the disastrous impression left by his debate against Donald Trump, whose immediate consequences he was completely unable to manage: a wave of calls for his withdrawal in the press, including New York Timesand a surge in concerns about his mental health within his party. Four Democratic lawmakers have already unequivocally called on Joe Biden to drop his candidacy. Democratic Gov. Maura Healey has called on him to evaluate his candidacy “carefully.”
Suspension of campaign financing
In addition, many Hollywood figures who have historically been considered major donors have announced that they are cutting off their funding to the Democrat’s campaign in an effort to force him out of the race. “Money is the lifeblood of a campaign, and maybe the only way is for the money to start drying up,” said Ari Emanuel, a Hollywood agent and major Democratic donor whose brother, Rahm, was Barack Obama’s former chief of staff when he was in the White House.
Netflix co-founder Reed Hastings, who along with his wife has donated more than $20 million to the Democratic Party in recent years, also called on the president to throw in the towel. “Biden must step aside to allow a strong Democratic leader to defeat Trump and keep us safe and prosperous,” he told the New York Times.
However, in his interview with ABC, the president dismissed these calls out of hand. “If the Lord Almighty came down and said, ‘Joe, get out of the race,’ I would get out of the race, but he’s not going to come down,” he said. Biden also said he “doesn’t believe” the polls that give his rival an advantage nationally and in key states, saying that in his view, he is “neck and neck” with Donald Trump.