President Joe Biden admitted that he “made a mistake” and “made a mistake” in last week’s presidential debate, admitting that his performance was difficult in some of his first interviews since the meltdown.
“I had a bad night,” Biden said Earl Ingram at WAUK, a radio station based in Waukesha, Wisconsin. “I didn’t have a good debate. It’s 90 minutes on stage. Look what I’ve done in 3.5 years.”
The president sat down for pre-recorded interviews with two radio stations — WAUK and WURD, the only African-American owned and operated radio station in Pennsylvania — as he tries to calm the nerves of Democrats frantic about his ability to serve.
In recent days, he has made last-minute plans to summon more than 20 Democratic governors, call senior congressional leaders, interview with George Stephanopoulos of ABC News and traveling to the swing states of Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. Still, a growing chorus of Democrats is urging you to decide quickly the future of your campaign – with at least two asking him to move away.
If Biden does not appear at the top of the ticket, some members of his party will be supporting Vice President Kamala Harris as second in line for the Democratic nomination. Representative. Jim Clyburn of South Carolina, a key ally of the president who helped rescue his campaign four years ago, said Wednesday that he would support a “mini-primary” before the Democratic convention later this summer if Biden stepped aside, although his team later attempted to clarify that the lawmaker was responding to a hypothetical question.
Biden told governors at their meeting Wednesday night that he had a medical exam and is doing well, POLITICIAN reported. Still, governors. Michelle Lujan Grisham of New Mexico and Janet Mills of Maine expressed concerns about whether he would be able to win their blue-leaning states, two people with knowledge of the discussion said.
In his interviews with WAUK and WURD, which aired Thursday morning, Biden appeared lucid when discussing his record, Donald Trump and issues affecting Black Americans — a voting bloc he has struggled to hold on on his side. Ingram said during his show that he was initially scheduled to speak with Biden for less than 10 minutes, but the conversation lasted more than twice as long. On WURD, he interviewed host Andrea Lawful-Sanders for nearly 15 minutes.
When Lawful-Sanders asked Biden If Americans should be worried after his debate performance, Biden gave a simple answer: “No.”
“I had a bad debate,” the president said, laughing. “But 90 minutes on stage doesn’t erase what I did for three and a half years.”
A Biden campaign spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment from POLITICO.
Biden rearranged his holiday weekend schedule to kick off campaigning in Madison, Wisconsin, on Friday and Philadelphia on Sunday — two key battlegrounds he narrowly won against Trump in 2020.
His interview with Stephanopoulos will now “air in its entirety as a primetime special” on Friday at 8pm EST, and an unedited transcript of the interview will be available the same day, ABC News announced. While in Wisconsin, Biden will meet with Stephanopoulos on Friday.
