WASHINGTON — After delivering his State of the Union address in March, President Joe Biden appeared to allay lingering fears that, at age 81, he was no longer up to the job.
He spoke firmly and fought Republican lawmakers who mocked his message. But a Democratic lawmaker who shook hands with Biden in the House chamber that night was concerned about his appearance.
Biden, the congressman said in a recent interview, seemed “fragile and weak.”
Biden’s poor debate performance with Donald Trump last week threatens to end his campaign just four months before the election. Hoping to salvage his bid for another term, he is asking voters to compare the 90-minute debacle with what he says is a record three-and-a-half years of achievements in office.
However, the notion that last week the debate was an anomaly does not match the impressions of some Democratic lawmakers who saw it up close and left doubting his ability to hold the position.
Far from being unique, the debate revealed the same worrying traits — memory lapses, incoherence, vacant stare — that these officials say they noticed in Biden’s company throughout his term.
“The country saw [at the debate] what all of us who have had personal interactions with him know over the last two and a half years,” said one senator, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss Biden’s fitness.
A large and well-funded team of advisors surrounds Biden and has worked to protect him from the embarrassments that could happen to an elderly president. He often boards Air Force One via a shorter staircase that leads to the belly of the plane to minimize the risk of falling. No president since Ronald Reagan has given fewer interviews, a forum in which he must respond to questions nimbly without the benefit of a script.
The debate took off the protective cloak. Now, Biden faces a crisis in which he needs to demonstrate — quickly — that he can perform at the level required by the presidency. In a phone call this week with a close ally, Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., Biden asserted that “he needs to do some things to earn back the trust of the American people,” Coons said in an interview.
The two men also discussed ways to overcome the consequences of the debate. One problem Biden acknowledged was that he was prepared to cite facts and figures that don’t carry much weight in a confrontation with Trump, Coons said.
“Donald Trump is a very different kind of opponent,” Coons said. “Donald Trump stood there and unleashed a torrent of furious invective that Joe Biden could still hear, even with the microphones turned off.”
Coons, who previously worked for Biden as a senatorial intern, said he remains confident in his cognitive abilities. On the phone call with Biden, he said, the president was “insightful, engaged and energetic.”
“I never had a moment that made me question his mental acuity,” Coons added.
Others see a more diminished figure. A third Democratic lawmaker said that in recent months, Biden he seemed “extremely tired” when the two were together. In other negotiations this year, Biden seemed “far from ideal.” While the debate was the “worst” version of Biden, the lawmaker said, “it was not an aberration.”
A group of about 40 Democratic lawmakers have been texting each other since the debate, this House member said, and none of them believe Biden should stay in the race.
In response, a Biden campaign spokesperson cited several members of Congress who vouched for Biden’s acumen.
Rep. Gerry Connolly, D-Va., a former member of Biden’s team from Biden’s time in the Senate, said, “I will tell you that in my encounters with Joe Biden as president, I have not experienced what I saw last week ” in the debate.
“The minute I see him, he knows me by name,” Connolly continued. “He will mention by name mutual friends and colleagues who worked with us during that time and is genuinely interested in how they are doing.”
“I certainly witnessed the aging of my former boss, of course, but not the mental decline,” Connolly said.
People age in different ways and the presidency tends to act as an aging accelerator. In 1990, a year after leaving office, Reagan testified at the trial of a former White House official. He was 79 at the time, two years younger than Biden is now.
Reagan didn’t remember the name of his former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He used the words “I don’t remember,” or something equivalent, at least 124 times, according to one Los Angeles Times account of your testimony.
There are many occasions when Biden demonstrates impressive command of his faculties, aides say.
As he prepared for a major speech in France last month for the 80th anniversary of D-Day, Biden took pains to ensure the text did justice to the Army Rangers. who scaled the cliffs in the face of German machine gun fire, a senior White House official said.
An early draft said soldiers were thinking about preserving democracy while climbing rope ladders on Omaha Beach.
That didn’t feel right to Biden, the official said. After reviewing the bill at his Paris hotel, Biden questioned an aide about whether the future of democracy would be something combat soldiers would actually discuss while dodging enemy fire.
No, it’s not, replied the advisor.
Biden insisted that the reference be dropped in favor of something more genuine.
The speech he gave at Pointe du Hoc recounted, instead, a conversation between two soldiers, one of whom said, “I’m not sure I can make it,” and another who shouted back, “You have to hold on.”
It is far from certain that Biden will be able to hold on. He’s banking heavily on an interview scheduled for Friday with ABC News, seeing it as a chance to dispel widespread doubts that have arisen since the debate.
“One of your main challenges is showing people that this was a moment,” Coons said. “This was a bad debate night for a number of reasons – not because of some hidden condition. And we talked about the things he needs to do to build public trust in this.”
However, the interview takes place eight days after Biden appeared on stage with Trump – long enough for the perception of his poor performance to calcify.
Even if the interview goes well, it may not be enough to rescue your candidacy.
“There is so much love for this man and his family. And there’s a lot of bewilderment among us about why he, and the people around him who presumably love him, are letting him take his historic legacy and throw it down the drain,” said the third-ranking Democratic lawmaker.
“If he loses to Trump after this debate, that will be on his tombstone, not his achievements. It is an absolutely legacy-defining moment”, added this legislator.
This story originally appeared on NBCNews.com read the full story
