Washington, Jun 28 (APP): In an effort to steady his presidential campaign, US President Joe Biden engaged in some furious damage control on Friday, after an unsteady performance in his debate with former President Donald Trump, as elected members of the Democratic party closed ranks in a bid to shut down talk of replacing him as the candidate for the top job.
At a rally in North Carolina on Friday, President Biden brought the energy that Democrats were hoping to see at Thursday night’s debate with Trump.
Speaking in a clear, booming voice over a crowd of supporters, Biden addressed the problem. “I know I’m not a young man,” Biden, 81, said. “I don’t walk as easy as I used to, I don’t speak as smoothly as I used to, I don’t debate as well as I used to, but I know what I do know: I know how to tell the truth. I know right from wrong. I know how to do this job. I know how to get things done.”
Analysts said It was as clear an admission of failure as Biden’s supporters could ask for.
“I know, like many of Americans know, when you get knocked down, you get back up,” the president said.
“My guess is he set ― I mean it sincerely ― a new record for the most lies told in a single debate,” Biden said about Trump.
“His biggest lie ― he lied about how he had nothing to do with the insurrection on January 6,” Biden said, referring to the 2021 attack on the US Capitol by Trump supporters after his election defeat. “We all saw with our own eyes. We watched it on television. We saw thousands, at his direction, attack the Capitol.”
Meanwhile, former President Barack Obama backed up his former vice president, posting on X that “Bad debate nights happen.” Alluding to his own poor showing in the first debate of his reelection campaign in 2012, Obama continued, “Trust me, I know. But this election is still a choice between someone who has fought for ordinary folks his entire life and someone who only cares about himself.”
He added: “Last night didn’t change that, and it’s why so much is at stake in November.”
House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries answered with a flat “no” when asked Friday if Biden should step aside.
Congressman Ritchie Torres, Democrat of New York, said, “Since performance last night, I had to take a few more antidepressants than usual.”
“People have asked me, ‘Do I feel comfortable with the debate?’ You know, a Donald Trump presidency would cause me far greater discomfort than a Joe Biden debate performance.”
In an another development, Biden’s campaign announced that it raised $14 million on debate day and the morning after, while Trump’s campaign said it raised more than $8 million from the start of the debate through the end of the night.
Vice President Kamala Harris, whom the Biden campaign sent out to defend his performance, was set to travel to Las Vegas, Nevada. She told CNN hours after the debate, “There was a slow start, but it was a strong finish.”
Democratic Congressman Emanuel Cleaver said he could hardly sleep because of the number of telephone calls he got after Biden performed “horribly” in the debate.
“People were just concerned. And I told everybody being concerned is healthy, overreacting is dangerous,” Cleaver said. “And I think I wouldn’t advise anybody to make rash decisions right now.”
Congressman James Clyburn, a South Carolina Democrat who was formerly a longtime fixture in House Democratic leadership, said he would likely speak to Biden later Friday and his message would be simple: “Stay the course.”
Biden and his allies were looking to brush aside concerns about his delivery to keep the focus on the choice for voters this November. They seized on Trump’s equivocations on whether he would accept the will of voters this time around, his refusal to condemn the rioters who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, trying to overturn his 2020 loss to Biden, and his embrace of the conservative-leaning Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade that had legalized abortion nationwide.
APP/ift