President Biden told a gathering of Democratic governors that he needs to sleep more and work fewer hours, including limiting events after 8 p.m., according to two people who attended the meeting and several others briefed on his comments.
Wednesday’s remarks were a stark acknowledgement of the 81-year-old president’s fatigue at a meeting meant to reassure more than two dozen of his most important supporters that he is still in command of the office and capable of waging a vigorous campaign against former President Donald J. Trump.
Mr. Biden’s comments about the need for more rest came shortly after The New York Times reported that current and former officials have noted that the president’s misconduct in recent months has become more frequent and more pronounced.
But Mr. Biden told governors, some of whom were at the White House while others participated virtually, that he remained in the race.
He cited his extensive foreign travel in the weeks leading up to the debate, a fact that the White House and its allies have cited in recent days as the reason for his faltering debate performance. Mr. Biden’s campaign initially blamed a cold, posting a message midway through the debate amid a flurry of social media posts questioning why Mr. Biden was struggling.
Mr. Biden said he told his staff he needed more sleep, several people familiar with what happened at the meeting said. He repeatedly referred to pushing too hard and not listening to his staff about his schedule, and said he needed to work fewer hours and avoid events scheduled after 8 p.m., according to one of the people familiar with what happened at the meeting.
After Hawaii Gov. Josh Green, a physician, asked Biden about his health, Biden said his health was fine. “It’s just my brain,” he added, according to three people familiar with the matter — a remark that some in the room took as a joke, including New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, according to a person familiar with her. But at least one governor did not, and was perplexed by it.
Jen O’Malley Dillon, Mr. Biden’s campaign manager who attended the meeting, said in a statement that he said, “All kidding aside,” a recollection confirmed by another person briefed on the meeting. Ms. O’Malley Dillon added: “He was clearly joking.”
Kevin Munoz, a spokesman for the Biden campaign, said of the president’s talk of sleeping more and working less late: “President Bush went to bed at 9 p.m. and President Obama cooked dinner at 6:30 p.m. Normal presidents have a balance, and Joe Biden does not. They don’t have the rigor of Donald Trump, who spends half his day ranting on Truth Social about plans that would cause a recession and the other half playing golf.”
Mr. Biden made two foreign trips in the weeks leading up to the debate, but then spent a week preparing for the debate at Camp David with a group of advisers. A person close to Mr. Biden said his comment about sleeping and working hours reflected the fact that during the training sessions, which took place immediately after the foreign trips, he was engaged in numerous official duties in addition to his campaign activities.
Several governors who participated in the meeting later expressed dismay at the lack of discussion about whether Mr. Biden should pursue his 2024 presidential campaign — a topic they discussed at length during a call the governors held among themselves on Monday.
Despite some of their private misgivings about continuing Mr. Biden’s campaign, none of the governors — some of whom have been mentioned as possible successors to Biden — have directly said they should drop out of the race, according to several people briefed on the meeting.
Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, a staunch Biden supporter, asked early in the meeting what the president’s plan was for the campaign going forward, according to two people briefed on the meeting.
Others in the meeting weighed in. Speaking toward the end of the meeting, Colorado Gov. Jared Polis, who attended the meeting virtually, told the president that he had heard a groundswell of people wanting Mr. Biden to end his campaign, according to two people briefed on the call.
Two other governors, Janet Mills of Maine and Michelle Lujan Grisham of New Mexico, also expressed concerns. Ms. Mills said people did not think Mr. Biden was up to the task, and Ms. Lujan Grisham said she was worried the president would lose her state, according to two of the people briefed.
Some governors have been more vocal. Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey, though she did not speak at Wednesday’s meeting with Mr. Biden, said in a call Monday with her fellow governors about the situation that she had told Jeff Zients, the White House chief of staff, that the president’s political standing was “unsalvageable” after his disastrous debate performance, according to two people who participated in the call.
Mr. Biden acknowledged to two of his allies that he knew he might not be able to hold on to a second term if he failed to demonstrate his abilities to voters after the debate. He sought to reassure his worried campaign aides in a call Wednesday before the meeting with governors that he was in the running to stay in office.
But the fact that Mr. Biden began the conversation with governors by saying he was continuing his work left some participants feeling that any deeper discussion of the state of affairs had cooled.
Mr. Biden told a Milwaukee radio station in an interview released Wednesday that he had “a bad night.” In the pre-recorded interview with radio host Earl Ingram, Mr. Biden added: “The fact is, I made a mistake. I made a mistake.”
Mr. Biden also told governors that he had been examined by his doctor at some point in the days after the debate because of a cold he had and that he was doing well, multiple people familiar with the events said. Politico reported earlier that Mr. Biden’s examination, which the White House said took place Monday, was brief and not a full physical.
A White House spokesman, Andrew Bates, confirmed that Mr. Biden had seen the White House physician to check out his cold. But on Friday, White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre said otherwise, telling reporters that Mr. Biden had not had a medical exam since February.
