President Joe Biden told Democratic governors during a meeting at the White House on Wednesday, part of his plan going forward is to stop scheduling events after 8 p.m. so he can get more sleep, according to three sources briefed on his comments.
The observations, first reported by The New York TimesIt came as Biden, 81, tried to reassure a group of more than 20 state leaders about his ability to defeat the former president donald trump in November and govern effectively for another four years.
Biden’s comment left several governors in attendance frustrated, sources told CNN, and is one reason some attendees were angered by their declaration of loyalty and enthusiasm distributed by the Biden campaign on Thursday.
The White House did not immediately comment on what the president said. A Biden campaign aide argued that in addition to preparing for the debate in the week following his two trips to Europe, Biden was engaged in official work hours in addition to campaign work hours.
Biden also made a joke to the governors that didn’t go down well: “I’m fine — but I don’t know about my brain.” Jen O’Malley Dillon, Biden’s campaign chairman, said the president was “clearly making a joke and then said, ‘Jokes aside.’”
After Biden’s poor performance during CNN presidential debate Last week, some Democrats began to ask the president to leave of the race, leaving the White House struggling to convince skeptics within the party and voters. In the days that followed, administration officials provided confusing and conflicting explanations as they tried to deliver a performance that exacerbated voters’ concerns about Biden’s age.
After the meeting, Govs. Wes Moore of Maryland, Kathy Hochul of New York and Tim Walz of Minnesota painted a positive picture of the meeting during a news conference, adding that Biden is “all in” and “in it to win.”
In response to a reporter’s question, Walz dismissed any concerns about Biden’s age and health, saying the the president is “fit for office.”
Biden, the oldest president in US history, has faced questions about his age and health for years. They peaked during the debate, when he was hoarse and at times unintelligible, making Trump — who is just three years younger than Biden — appear fitter. Most observers of the debate considered the former president to be the winner of the impasse, according to a CNN Poll.
And Biden’s debate performance opened the floodgates for more scrutiny and reports about the president’s health, with sources describing a decline in his mental fitness.
The New York Times reported earlier this week that the the president’s “lapses” increased and it got more worrying, with a source telling the Times that preparations for Biden’s six-day debate at Camp David didn’t begin until 11 a.m. and that the president had time to nap every day.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre dodged a question during Wednesday’s briefing about whether the president takes daily afternoon naps following the Times report. But she offered jet lag and travel fatigue as an explanation for Biden’s poor debate performance, after previously attributing it to a cold.
Amid growing pressure to consider dropping out of the race and growing concern about whether he will be able to serve another term, CNN previously reported that Biden privately expressed that the next few days will be critical in whether he can do so. save his candidacy for re-election.
This story has been updated with additional details.
CNN’s Kaanita Iyer, Jack Forrest, MJ Lee and Betsy Klein contributed to this report.
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