Barack Obama’s weak support for former president and president Joe Biden

Raleigh:

An enthusiastic Joe Biden came out on Friday as he tried to make up for a disastrous debate performance against Donald Trump by insisting he was the right man to win the US presidential election in November.

Biden’s appearance at a campaign rally in the swing state of North Carolina came amid talk in his alarmed Democratic Party about replacing the 81-year-old as its nominee — and just before the country’s most influential newspaper urged him to move away.

“I don’t walk as well as I used to. I don’t talk as well as I used to. I don’t debate as well as I used to,” Biden admitted to his supporters in unusually confessional comments.

“But I know how to tell the truth. I know how to do this job,” he said to loud applause, vowing, “When you get knocked down, you get back up.”

Biden’s team was in damage control mode after Thursday’s debate, when he often hesitated, stumbled over his words and lost his train of thought — exacerbating fears about his ability to serve another term.

He hoped to calm doubts about his advanced age and expose Trump as a habitual liar.

But the president was unable to counter his bombastic rival, who delivered an unchallenged array of false or misleading statements on everything from the economy to immigration.

On Friday, Biden delivered the lines that Democrats would have liked to have heard in the television debate.

“Did you see Trump last night? My guess is he set — and I say this sincerely — a new record for the most lies told in a single debate,” Biden said.

“Donald Trump is a genuine threat to this nation. He is a threat to our freedom. He is a threat to our democracy. He is literally a threat to everything that America stands for.”

Trump also returned to the campaign trail on Friday, speaking at a rally in Virginia and launching his familiar attacks on Biden in a rambling speech.

“It’s not your age, it’s your competence,” Trump said.

“The question every voter should be asking themselves today is not whether Joe Biden can survive a 90-minute debate, but whether America can survive four more years of corrupt Joe Biden.”

A New Democrat?

Trump addressed Biden’s chances of being replaced by another candidate, saying, “I don’t really believe that because he does better in the polls than any of the (other) Democrats.”

So far, no high-ranking Democratic figures have publicly called for Biden to withdraw, with most toeing the party line about keeping the existing ticket.

“I will never turn my back on President Biden,” California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who was high on lists of potential replacement candidates, said immediately after the debate.

Forcing a change in the ticket would be politically complicated, and Biden would have to decide to withdraw to make room for another nominee before the party convention next month.

Biden won a landslide primary victory and the 3,900 party delegates who headed to the convention in Chicago are in his debt.

If he leaves, delegates will have to find a replacement.

“Bad debate nights happen,” Biden’s former boss Barack Obama wrote on X.

But the election “is still a choice between someone who has fought for ordinary people his entire life and someone who only cares about himself.”

The show of Democratic loyalty and Biden’s challenge in North Carolina, however, were not enough for The New York Times.

The daily newspaper classified Biden’s campaign as a “reckless gamble” in the face of the threat posed by Trump, with its editorial board – which is separate from the newsroom – asking the president to step aside.

The “greatest public service Biden can provide now is to announce that he will not continue to run for re-election,” he said.

A logical – but not automatic – candidate to take Biden’s place would be his vice president, Kamala Harris, who loyally defended his performance in the debate.

While Democrats fought, Trump’s allies sought to project calm security.

U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson, a leading Republican figure, said it was clear Biden was not “up to the job.”

“Donald Trump is the only man on this stage qualified and capable of serving as the next president,” he said. “The election can’t come soon enough.”

A second debate is scheduled for September 10.

(Except the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)