Andrea Shalal, Stephanie Kelly, Kanishka Singh
MADISON (Reuters) – U.S. President Joe Biden again called his debate with Republican candidate Donald Trump a “bad episode” but remained adamant in an interview with ABC News on Friday that he will beat Trump in November’s election.
“I have no signs of any serious symptoms. I was exhausted. I didn’t follow my instincts in terms of preparation and I had a bad night,” Biden, 81, told ABC News host George Stephanopoulos in an interview recorded in Madison, Wisconsin.
“Tonight was the worst, and I don’t know why,” Biden added in a husky voice, occasionally choking up.
Stephanopoulos gently but repeatedly pressed Biden on whether his belief that he could beat Trump was realistic, given the gap in their poll numbers and growing concern from Democrats.
“I don’t think there’s anybody better qualified to do it,” Biden told Stephanopoulos in the interview, who said the polls were inaccurate.
Asked if he would back out if Democrats said he was hurting his chances of reelection in November, Biden responded, “If the almighty God came along and said maybe I should do that.”
The 22-minute interview, which Stephanopoulos said was uncut and unedited, has drawn attention from Democrats concerned about whether Trump can serve another four years in office or beat the 78-year-old president in an election after his poor performance in the June 27 debate.
“I don’t know how he’s going to get through this week as a nominee,” a House Democratic leader aide told Reuters on condition of anonymity after seeing a brief clip of the interview aired before the interview.
Cognitive testing
“I felt awful,” Biden said. “The doctors were with me, actually. I asked if they would do a COVID test because they were trying to figure out what was wrong. They did a test to see if I had the virus. I didn’t. I just had a bad cold.”
He added that it was no one else’s fault but his own, and that he had not rewatched the debate performance.
Asked if he had become more frail, Biden said, “No.”
“Look, I take cognitive tests every day. I take them every day. Everything I do is a test,” Biden said, when asked repeatedly if he takes cognitive tests.
In an impassioned speech in Madison on Friday, Biden told the crowd that some Democrats were trying to remove him from the race following his debate with Trump. But in an interview with ABC News, Biden said he didn’t expect Democratic leaders to ask him to recuse himself.
He said he spoke for an hour with House Speaker Hakeem Jeffries of New York and at a longer interval with Rep. Jim Clyburn of South Carolina.
In the interview, Biden touted his accomplishments during his presidency, including NATO expansion, economic growth and his Middle East peace plan, and also spoke about expanding health care and tax reform if he were elected to a second term.
The interview, even before it aired in full, appeared to do little to ease viewers’ concerns about Biden’s age.
“We’ve seen enough,” Ron Fournier, a senior adviser to news agency Truscott Rothman and a former White House correspondent, said alongside a video on social media platform X. “It’s hard to imagine this good man beating President Trump and getting another four years in the toughest job on earth.”
