Ahead of the crucial interview, Biden in the key battleground state of Wisconsin said, “You probably heard that I had a rough debate last week.Can’t say it was my best performance, but since then, there’s been a lot of speculation: ‘What’s Joe going to do? Is he going to stay in the race? Is he going to drop out?’ Well, here’s my answer: I am running and I am going to win again.”
Biden said that he was going to defeat Donald Trump despite attempts being made to “push him out” of the race.
President Biden, who made headlines more often than not for his gaffes over the past week, initially misspoke by saying he would beat Trump again in 2020, but then corrected himself, saying, “We’re going to do it again in 2024.”
“I learned long ago, when you get knocked down, you get back up,” he said, emphasizing that he wouldn’t let a 90-minute debate erase his accomplishments over the last three and a half years.
In his speech, Biden mocked Trump’s verbal gaffes, referencing an incident where Trump claimed Revolutionary War armies took over airports. Biden quipped, “They talk about me misspeaking—airports and the British in 1776. It’s true, he is a stable genius.”
Crucial ABC interview
Democratic allies are urging Biden to step up his campaign or drop out of the 2024 race, stressing on the need to demonstrate his readiness for a second term.
Apart from the Texas Congressman, who became the first democrat to announce his reservation against Biden running again, Massachusetts Governor on Friday Maura Healey joined the clamor by issuing a statement urging President Joe Biden to “carefully evaluate” whether he remains the Democratic Party’s best hope to defeat Donald Trump in the 2024 election. Evaluations of Biden’s fitness for office, including his upcoming speech and ABC interview, are expected to be closely scrutinized against a backdrop of growing clamor from outside and also within.
In this context, Biden’s ABC interview is expected to be both fair and challenging, focusing on his age and mental acuity. Potential missteps in this unscripted format could impact his reelection prospects, with some Democratic operatives critical of his decision to continue running. For Biden, the interview and the forthcoming campaigns will be key to setting the narrative right and more importantly rewriting the wrong from the debate that went awry.
However, earlier on Thursday, Biden’s campaign faced setbacks as he stumbled in a radio interview, mistakenly suggesting he was “the first Black woman to serve with a Black president,” confusing his tenure as vice president under Obama with Kamala Harris’ role.
At a separate event on Fourth of July celebrations, Biden stumbled through a brief speech at a White House barbecue, briefly claiming highway congestion was a thing of the past and nearly referring to Donald Trump as his “colleague.” And quickly hushed it off by saying, “I probably shouldn’t even say that … anyway.”
