6 Takeaways From Biden’s High-Stakes Interview: NPR

Democrats have been in a panic about President Biden’s candidacy and his ability to beat Donald Trump since Biden’s disappointing performance in last week’s debate.

In an attempt to allay that concern, Biden gave a television interview to ABC’s George Stephanopoulos on Friday night.

Did it work? That will become clearer in the coming days, but here are six takeaways from the interview:

1. He was better than in the debate, but Biden’s age is clearly showing.

Biden may have calmed some of his political allies with the interview, but he didn’t display the ease and coherence that Democrats would have liked to see. His thoughts were at times scattered and unclear.

“I just had a bad night,” Biden said of the debate. “I don’t know why.”

He said he had traveled in the previous weeks, had a cold and had even been tested for COVID.

Will Democratic officials and, more importantly, convinced voters buy into this idea and believe that he is ready to stay in office for four more years? Biden insists he is up to the task, but his age is making it clearer than it did last year—and at exactly the wrong time. Going into the debate, the bar of expectations was set very low. All Biden had to do to get there was show some energy and vigor. He didn’t. And now the bar has been raised. Every public appearance, speech, and debate (if there ever is another one) is going to be amplified.

2. Biden has shown his stubbornness, for better and for worse.

Biden reiterated once again that he is not giving up on the race, even going so far as to say that no one else could do the job as well as he could or be a better candidate against Trump.

Biden has downplayed questions about his political standing, doubts about his ability to lead or defeat Trump. “I’ve seen it in the press. I don’t think the vast majority is there. I don’t think that’s my approval rating.”

He has sought to distract from and rationalize away his vulnerabilities, but to understand why Biden has not stepped down is to understand his politics and the essence of his personality. He has faced a multitude of personal and political challenges, and those obstacles have defined his personality. Biden is used to being told he can’t or shouldn’t do something, and he has long believed that the naysayers have been wrong.

Of course, these obstacles are all very different from the one he currently faces, as Father Time is undefeated.

Historian Douglas Brinkley once said of former President George W. Bush: “Stubbornness is a positive quality of presidential leadership, provided you are right about what you are stubborn about.”

The same can be said of Biden or any president, for that matter.

3. Only the “Lord Almighty” could force Biden out of the race – or perhaps his closest allies in the Democratic leadership.

“If the Lord Almighty came down and said, ‘Joe, get out of the race,’ I would get out of the race,” Biden said. “The Lord Almighty is not coming down.”

Yes, a second term is unlikely to prompt Biden to step down, but Biden appears to have left the door slightly ajar for an exit if his key congressional allies, including House Speaker Hakeem Jeffries, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Rep. Jim Clyburn and Senate Leader Chuck Schumer, were to demand it.

To be clear, no one called for his removal, though Pelosi changed her tune and said it was legitimate to question whether Biden’s performance was an “episode” or a “condition.” “If your allies, your friends, and your supporters in the Democratic Party in the House and the Senate are reliably telling you that they are concerned that you will lose the House and the Senate if you stay, what will you do?” Stephanopoulos asked Biden.

“I’m not going to answer that question,” Biden said. “That’s not going to happen.”

So it seems that Biden’s future in this race does not depend solely on him.

4. The question is whether Biden thinks Vice President Harris can win or do the job as well.

“I don’t think anyone is more qualified to be president or win this race than me,” Biden said.

He then asked incredulously who else would have the “reach” he has with his allies and whether anyone else could handle foreign policy as well as he does – even though he is clearly diminished from what he was a few years ago.

Not even, say, his vice president? Stephanopoulos didn’t follow up on that question, but it was curious. Of course, anyone running for office should assume that no one could do better than them, but how close has Biden been to Harris lately—even raising his arm in the air at a Fourth of July event as if she’d just won a boxing match—and given the questions about her age, it’s worth wondering if his answer means he doesn’t have enough faith in Harris to do the job or win?

5. This is a crucial week for polls.

We are now entering the second week after the debate. It typically takes two weeks for public opinion to solidify. Polls this week showed that Biden was hurt by the debate — and the extent of that disadvantage is open to debate.

So this is an important time to see whether or not Biden can weather this storm. There are certainly Democrats who are strongly behind Biden. But many, if not most, are biting their nails and waiting to see what the polls say.

If he stays where he was before the debate, it will help solidify his support. If he falls further behind Trump, more Democrats will call for his removal.

6. This whole episode shows the glaring difference between the Democratic and Republican parties.

The fact that Democrats have raised so many questions about Biden’s viability shows a huge divide between the major parties.

One party, the GOP, doesn’t seem to care that two dozen women have accused their candidate of sexual assault, doesn’t care that he runs a fraudulent foundation and a fake “university,” doesn’t care that he paid off a porn star, doesn’t care that he lies repeatedly, and doesn’t care that he’s been impeached twice or convicted on nearly three dozen charges.

The Democratic Party, meanwhile, is concerned about Biden’s age, not his character or his priorities for the country.

It’s something that has irritated people, like John Fetterman, the brusque senator from Pennsylvania.

“Democrats need to get some courage or grow some wings – one or the other,” he wrote on X. “Joe Biden is our guy.”