By Steve Holland
MCLEAN, Virginia (Reuters) – U.S. President Joe Biden acknowledged on Tuesday that his performance during last Thursday’s presidential debate was not the best, but blamed jet lag after two trips abroad earlier of June.
Biden has faced growing doubts about his 2024 re-election bid following last week’s shaky debate performance, with a fellow Democrat in the House of Representatives publicly calling on Tuesday for him to withdraw from the race.
Speaking at a campaign event in McLean, Virginia, on Tuesday night, Biden admitted that the debate against former President Donald Trump, his Republican rival, did not go well.
“I didn’t have my best night, but the fact is, you know, I wasn’t very smart,” Biden said, speaking at the campaign fundraiser without the aid of a teleprompter. sometimes passing through about 100 time zones… before… the debate.
“I didn’t listen to my team and I came back and almost fell asleep on stage,” he said. “That’s not an excuse, but it’s an explanation.”
Biden traveled to France and Italy during two separate trips in the space of two weeks last month, flying overnight from the Group of Seven summit in Bari, Italy, to appear at a fundraiser with former President Barack Obama in Los Angeles. , on June 15, before returning. to Washington the next day.
He then spent six days at Camp David preparing for the June 27 debate.
White House officials attributed Biden’s halting performance during the debate to a cold. Biden did not mention being sick during Tuesday’s fundraiser.
A new Reuters/Ipsos poll ending Tuesday showed that one in three Democrats think Biden should end his re-election bid after the debate, but no prominent elected Democrat fares better than Biden in a hypothetical matchup against Trump.
The two-day poll revealed that both Trump, 78, and Biden, 81, maintain the support of 40% of registered voters, suggesting that Biden has not lost ground since the debate. Election day is November 5th.
(This story has been refiled to fix the hyperlink in paragraph 9)
(Reporting by Steve Holland; writing by Andrea Shalal; editing by Leslie Adler)
