Although he considers that concerns about his age are a “legitimate question”, Joe Biden assures us: “My mental acuity is pretty damn good.” In an interview with NBC on Monday, July 15, scheduled last week after his disastrous debate against his Republican rival for the White House, the American president, candidate for re-election, affirmed “In three and a half years, I have accomplished more than any president has done in a long time. I am prepared to be judged on that.”
The shots that injured Donald Trump may have siphoned off all the media attention, but they have not erased the panic that has gripped the Democratic camp since Joe Biden gave a poor image of himself at the end of June, searching for words during a debate against Trump where he often had his eyes in the distance and his mouth open.
The vengeful president said he was ready for a new debate “in September,” as planned before the November election. “I will debate with him at the time we agreed to debate […] in September,” he said. “I don’t expect to have another performance of this level.”
“A legitimate question”
But he stumbled over words, didn’t finish several sentences and also lost the thread of his argument at one point in the interview, causing an awkward silence. “I understand why people say, ‘My God, he’s 81. What’s he going to be like when he’s 83, 84?’ It’s a fair question to ask,” he acknowledged. The president has repeatedly said he will see this through, ignoring calls from his own camp, the press and Hollywood to step down.
In the midst of this difficult sequence, the assassination attempt on his rival gives him some respite, relegating doubts about his age to the background. But it also forces him to hold back his blows against Donald Trump and to find the right tone to criticize him in this delicate moment.
Joe Biden targets Donald Trump’s “lies”
Joe Biden thus acknowledged having made a “mistake” in calling for “targeting” Donald Trump on July 8. Pronounced during a dinner with donors, this formula has now been widely criticized since his rival narrowly escaped multiple gunshots on Saturday during a rally in Pennsylvania. Some Republicans, including Trump’s running mate, JD Vance, believed that the president’s speeches could have played a role in this assassination attempt. “I wanted to say, focus on him, on what he’s doing, on his policies, the number of lies he told during the debate,” Joe Biden justified himself.
The president wanted to pose as a unifier, seeking to ease tensions in an ultra-polarized country, without denying his attacks on Donald Trump, whom he considers dangerous. “How do you talk about the threat to our democracy, which is real when a president says things like he says? You don’t just say something just because it might incite someone?” he asked. “I didn’t use that rhetoric. My rival used that rhetoric, he talks about a slaughter if he loses,” he recalled. “I’m not the one who said, ‘I want to be a dictator from day one.'”
When his interviewer, journalist Lester Holt, asked him whether the assassination attempt had changed the trajectory of the election, he snapped, “I don’t know, and you don’t know.” He also railed against the press, which he said didn’t do enough to highlight Trump’s untruths during their debate. “Why don’t you ever talk about the 18 to 20 lies he told?” he asked.