Only divine intervention will persuade Joe Biden that it is time to bow out of the US presidential race. On what must rank as one of the strangest broadcast nights in American electoral history, the sitting president submitted to a 20-minute interview in which he answered a series of questions about his physical and mental state. George Stephanopoulos, the host, told viewers that the broadcast had not been cut or edited: they were watching the conversation as it took place earlier on Friday afternoon. It aired at 9pm - after an episode of Jeopardy. Whatever about the American public, every word was scrutinised by president Biden’s party colleagues in the Congress and the Senate and at state level to see what he would say.
If the Atlanta debate was, as the White House have persistently claimed, down to a “bad night” then this was the other Biden: feisty, energised, completely accepting the blame for his performance a week ago and utterly wedded to the doctrine that he can and will beat Donald Trump in November. That was his message. The dismaying poll figures did not move him. His record in office spoke for himself. And most importantly, Democratic governors and colleagues told him that he had to stay on.
“Yeah, I am sure. Look, if the Lord Almighty said get out of the race, then I get out of the race. But He’s not coming down. It’s hypothetical, George.”
As a 20-minute exercise in political survival and agility, it was a defiant performance and president Biden largely prevented himself from wandering down verbal cul-de-sacs by keeping his answers clipped and direct. At times, he seemed stunned by the scenario that Stephanopoulos laid out for him: that Democratic colleagues who loved him and held his four-year term in highest esteem now wanted him to leave with good grace. This was not what he was hearing. He gave a lopsided grin when told that the Washington Post had just reported that senator Mark Warner was attempting to assemble a group of fellow Democratic senators to come together and formally ask him to leave the race next week.
“Well, Mark is a good man. He also tried to get the nomination too. Mark and I have a different perspective. I respect him.”
He was not convinced by that, or by the fact that despite his rival becoming a convicted felon, despite falling inflation, Biden was dropping further behind in the same polls. “I remember them telling me the same thing in 2020. I can’t win. The polls show I can’t win. In 2022, the red wave was coming. Before the vote I said that’s not going to happen. We’re gonna win.”
He avoided Stephanopoulos’s question as to whether he would submit himself to an independent medical exam and release the results. In what may become the standout moment from the interview, he didn’t hesitate when asked how he would feel if he stood for election in November and then watched as Donald Trump won the election and returned to the White House.
“I’ll feel that as long as I gave it my all and did the best job I know I can do that this is what this is about.”
It was a revealing and significant slip into the personal and over the inevitable blizzard of weekend phone calls and messages before business resumes on Capitol Hill on Monday, it was a response that could well heighten the anxiety within the party. Joe Biden giving it his best 81-year-old shot is not what the November election is about to the majority of his party colleagues. The chief aim is plotting and then prosecuting a path to defeating the Republican threat.
The overall effect of the interview was to confirm the idea of the Biden White House in a state of psychological lockdown. The president is hearing one thing from a tight circle of family and advisers and has not coldly evaluated the polling data that are returning indicators that suggest a catastrophic outcome for his party.
‘It all leaves the Democratic candidacy in an strange and chaotic state’
The interview completed what as a combative and fiery day’s campaigning for the president. His twenty-minute speech in Madison, Wisconsin was delivered as a direct repudiation to Donald Trump, as Biden sought to relocate and present something of his political veneer. Afterwards, just before boarding Air Force One, he told reporters that exiting the race was not under consideration. “I’m completely ruling that out”, he said.
“I’ve beaten him before and I’ve got more done than any president has.”
Quizzed about the poll numbers, he retorted with a shot of the caustic directness that had deserted him against Donald Trump
“You’ve been wrong about everything, so far. You were wrong about 2020. You were wrong about 2022, ‘We were going to get wiped out.’ Remember the ‘red wave’? You were wrong about 2023 ... So look, we’ll see.”
But that’s the issue. For many donors and Democratic politicians, the idea of waiting and seeing has become terrifying. In some ways, the twenty-minute ABC interview was the worst outcome: a tantalising glimpse of the best of Biden: loyal, good-humoured, feisty and able to point to a long, glittering track record of legislative and social accomplishments- including the creation of 206,000 jobs this month alone.
It all leaves the Democratic candidacy in an strange and chaotic state. There was something saddening and humbling about watching an American who has scaled the heights forced on to national television to defend his basic faculties. But that’s the job. As Philip Roth once wrote: Old age isn’t a battle. old age is a massacre.
So, Biden enters the weekend defiant as ever and adamant that he is not deluding himself: that he was being honest with himself that he could keep going at this for another four years.
“Yes I am because the last thing I want to do is not be able to meet that,” he told his host.
“As some of senior economists and senior foreign policy specialists said, if I stop now I go down as a pretty successful president. Nobody thought I could get done what we got done.”
“And are you being honest with yourself about your ability to defeat Donald Trump right now?” George Stephanopoulos asked.
Joe Biden’s eyes widened at that and for a few seconds the years fell away.
“Yes. Yes, yes, yes.”
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