Everything seems to be going well in President Biden’s world. That devastating debate? Just a bad night. Those disappointing polls? Simply inaccurate. The gloomy election predictions? The same old doomsayers, wrong again. The Democrats who want him to drop out? No one told him.
For Mr. Biden, the crisis facing so many Democrats who are not in his payroll—and some who are—is nothing more than another hurdle to overcome, as he has always done. He does not acknowledge that he is declining with age. He does not accept that he is losing to former President Donald J. Trump. He does not believe that many in his own party want him to step down.
His prime time interview aired on ABC News Friday night’s operation was not just about damage control, but also about reality control. For much of his long and storied political career, Mr. Biden succeeded through sheer force of will, defying skeptics and detractors to prove that he could do what no one expected. But now, in what may be the most threatened moment of his presidency, that self-confidence is leaving him increasingly isolated within his own party.
“You really see a president in denial and in a bubble,” Julián Castro, a former housing secretary who ran against Mr. Biden for the Democratic nomination in 2020, said in an interview. “You want a president who can honestly and accurately assess his viability in this race, and this interview did not give me any confidence that he has a good grasp of that.”
David Axelrod, a former senior adviser to President Barack Obama who has long worried about Mr. Biden’s decision to run again, said the president is rightly proud of his record. “But he’s dangerously out of touch with the concerns that people have about his ability to move forward and where he stands in this race.” he wrote on social media.
Mr. Biden’s performance in the 22 minute session with George Stephanopoulos The debate with Mr. Trump was not viewed as disastrously as the one he had eight days earlier. But while his most loyal supporters may have found enough comfort to stick with him, those who have turned against him or were about to turn against him did not seem comforted, and time is running out if the party is to change its nominees, as some would like.
Although Mr. Biden this time displayed a ruddy complexion and appeared calm and collected, his hands on his knees and his legs crossed, he once again sounded hoarse and at times hesitant, occasionally struggling to finish a sentence. He dismissed concerns about his health, denied that he was more frail and dodged questions about medical tests.
He repeatedly took responsibility for his debate performance – “it’s nobody’s fault but mine” – but then blamed it on exhaustion and illness, as well as Mr Trump’s “shouting” that distracted him. Even so, he said he did not know whether he had actually watched a recording of the debate afterward. He said he takes a cognitive test every day because he “runs the world” and would only withdraw from the race “if the Lord Almighty came down and said, ‘Joe, withdraw from the race.’”
Perhaps the answer that sparked the most irritation among his fellow Democrats came from Mr. Stephanopoulos when he asked Mr. Biden how he would feel in January if he lost to Mr. Trump and had to hand the White House back to the former president. “I’ll feel good as long as I gave it my all and did the best job I could, that’s what it’s all about,” Mr. Biden replied.
Several Democrats expressed exasperation afterward, saying the election was not about winning a participation trophy but about arresting a convicted felon who tried to overturn an election he lost, urged “Termination” of the Constitution to return to power and vowed to devote his next term to demanding “punishment” on his opponents. One House Democrat, who asked not to be identified for fear of repercussions, said he hoped the Lord Almighty would come speak with Mr. Biden soon.
Every president lives to some extent in a bubble of his own construction, sealed off from the outside world in the fortress of Pennsylvania Avenue, surrounded by a phalanx of aides and Secret Service agents and reassured by his allies of his singular importance in the world. Mr. Biden decided to run for reelection even though he would be 86 at the end of his second term, having convinced himself that he was the only one who could beat Mr. Trump.
About a dozen Democratic lawmakers and strategists contacted after the ABC interview expressed serious doubts about Mr. Trump’s ability to defeat Mr. Trump at this point. But it’s less clear whether they were saying that to Mr. Biden personally. Friends of presidents tend to avoid delivering the hardest news directly, often trying to get those messages through the media where they can be ignored or through their aides who may or may not deliver them in full.
If the message hasn’t gotten through in private, it could get louder in public. One Democrat working for the party predicted more elected officials would call on the president to step down. Another Democratic ally in the White House said the interview didn’t resolve the issue and amounted to a stay of execution for Mr. Biden. Both spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the situation.
“This interview was necessary but not sufficient,” said Paul Begala, a prominent Democratic strategist. “It will not quell the growing anger and resentment among Democrats. Nothing short of President Biden doing a Simone Biles-style triple somersault with a double twist can make Democrats forget about this debate.”
For many Democrats who like the president, the interview was painful to watch. Mr. Stephanopoulos was respectful and professional, but pressed Mr. Biden on the tough questions that no octogenarian wants to face about his own mental acuity and future abilities.
At one point, Mr. Stephanopoulos even appeared to offer Mr. Biden a dignified exit, but the president rejected it.
“The sentiment is this,” Stephanopoulos said of Democrats. “They love you and will be forever grateful to you for defeating Donald Trump in 2020. They think you did a great job as president, that you accomplished many of the successes that you described. But they worry about you and they worry about the country. And they don’t think you can win. They want you to go out gracefully and they will cheer you if you do. What do you think?”
“I’m saying the vast majority is not where those people are,” Mr. Biden responded, ignoring polls showing Nearly half of Democrats think he should step down“I have no doubt there are people out there.” He then compared the current situation to the uncertainty about his ability to win four years ago. “The same thing happened in 2020,” he said, before imitating the pessimists. “Oh, Biden, I don’t know. What the hell is he going to do? He could take me down.”
Mr. Stephanopoulos said he had never seen a president with a 36 percent approval rating win reelection. “Well, I don’t think that’s my approval rating,” Mr. Biden said. “That’s not what our polls show.”
The White House understood that a single interview would never be enough to resolve the crisis caused by the debate. But Mr. Biden and his aides hoped that it would at least stabilize the situation and begin to slowly rebuild trust, with gatherings like this one. the one he did in Wisconsin Friday and a press conference at next week’s NATO summit in Washington.
Mr. Biden has been sidelined so often over the past half-century that he has an uncanny confidence in his own ability to bounce back from any setback. He sees himself as a long-term player, calm in the face of the tumult around him. In recent days, he has seemed surprisingly measured to friends who have spoken to him, even as he has acknowledged the challenges he faces.
Mr Biden now heads into a weekend where his fellow Democrats will decide how to proceed. Democratic lawmakers And major donors Trump supporters are organizing to pressure the president to quit the race or reconsider his approach. The president’s television appearance Friday doesn’t appear likely to deter that decision.
“I don’t think it’s going to do much to calm the nerves of Democrats on Capitol Hill,” said Jim Manley, a former senior adviser to Senate Democrats. “We’re in for a tough few days.”
