Barack Obama Endorsed His Former Veep Joe Biden After the First Presidential Debate (File)
Raleigh:
An excited Joe Biden came out swinging on Friday as he tried to make up for a disastrous debate performance against Donald Trump, insisting he was the right man to win November’s US presidential election.
Biden’s appearance at a campaign rally in the battleground state of North Carolina came amid rumblings in his alarmed Democratic Party over replacing the 81-year-old as their nominee — and shortly before the nation’s most influential newspaper urged him to step aside.
“I don’t walk as easily as I used to. I don’t speak as smoothly as I used to. I don’t debate as well as I used to,” Biden admitted to his supporters in unusually confessional remarks.
‘But I know how to tell the truth. I know how to do this job,” he said to loud cheers and vowed, “If you get knocked down, you get back up.”
Biden’s team found itself in damage control mode after Thursday’s debate as he often hesitated, stumbled over words and lost his thoughts — exacerbating fears about his ability to serve another term.
He had hoped to dispel doubts about his old age and expose Trump as a habitual liar.
But the president failed to contradict his bombastic rival, who made a largely unchallenged series of false or misleading statements on everything from the economy to immigration.
On Friday, Biden delivered the statements that Democrats would have liked to hear in the televised debate.
“Did you see Trump last night? “I suspect he has set a new record — and I mean this sincerely — for the number of lies told in one debate,” Biden said.
“Donald Trump is a real 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 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 lengthy speech.
“It’s not his age, it’s his competence,” Trump said.
“The question every voter should ask today is not whether Joe Biden can survive a 90-minute debate performance, but whether America can survive four more years of crooked Joe Biden.”
A New Democrat?
Addressing the chances of Biden being replaced by another candidate, Trump said: “I don’t really believe that because he’s doing better in the polls than all the (other) Democrats.”
So far, no senior Democratic figure has publicly called for Biden to withdraw, with most toeing a party line on sticking with the existing ticket.
“I will never turn my back on President Biden,” California Governor Gavin Newsom, who has featured prominently on lists of possible replacement candidates, said immediately after the debate.
Forcing a change to the ticket would be politically fraught, and Biden himself would have to decide to withdraw to make way for another nominee before the party convention next month.
Biden won the primaries overwhelmingly, and the party’s 3,900 delegates going to the convention in Chicago owe him a lot.
If he leaves, deputies 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 spent his life fighting for ordinary people and someone who only cares about himself.”
However, Biden’s show of Democratic loyalty and defiance in North Carolina were not enough for The New York Times.
The newspaper labeled Biden’s campaign a “reckless gamble” in light of the threat posed by Trump, with the editorial board – which is separate from the newsroom – calling on the president to step aside.
The “greatest public service Mr. Biden can perform now is to announce that he will no longer run for re-election,” the report said.
A logical — but not automatic — candidate to take Biden’s place would be his vice president, Kamala Harris, who loyally defended his debate performance.
As Democrats rushed, Trump’s allies tried to project calm assurance.
U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson, a senior Republican figure, said it was clear Biden was “not up to the task.”
“Donald Trump is the only man on that stage who is qualified and capable of serving as the next president,” he said. “The elections can’t happen fast enough.”
A second debate is scheduled for September 10.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
