The US president continues to stumble over his words while trying to salvage his reelection campaign.
US President Joe Biden gave several radio interviews and delivered a brief Fourth of July speech on Thursday, in an apparent attempt to reassure voters of his mental capacity to hold office, following a disastrous debate with his Republican rival Donald Trump.
Biden openly admitted he “screwed up” the debate, but told The Earl Ingram Show that he will “get back up,” rejecting any intention of dropping out of the presidential race.
“I had a bad night.... And the fact of the matter is that, you know, I screwed up,” Biden said, after his aides spent a week offering various excuses from an alleged preparation overload, to a minor cold and a jet lag from a trip 12 days prior to the debate.
During a separate interview with Philadelphia’s WURD, the gaffe-prone US leader struggled to find the right phrase while apparently trying to refer to Vice President Kamala Harris and recall his time in Barack Obama’s administration.
"I couldn’t fully believe the text of this tweet when I read it, so I listened to the audio. Can’t make this stuff up." https://t.co/Fw1zZ86u0y
— Vivek Ramaswamy (@VivekGRamaswamy) July 4, 2024
“By the way, I’m proud to be, as I said, the first vice president, first black woman... to serve with a black president. Proud to be involved of the first black woman on the Supreme Court. There’s so much that we can do because... look, we’re the United States of America,” Biden said.
The US president also delivered a four-minute speech at the White House, focusing his remarks on his visit last month to Normandy, to commemorate the 80th anniversary of D-Day, but seemingly veered off script and lost his train of thought several times, and at one point even called his rival Trump a “colleague.”
"DISGRACEFUL: A heavily slurring Biden starts to stumble through the debunked "suckers and losers" hoax at the White House Independence Day celebration — in front of our great military families pic.twitter.com/57O54Gt8zZ"
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) July 4, 2024
“And by the way, you know I was in that WWI cemetery in France, and.... the one that one of our colleagues, the former president, did not wanna go and be up there... I shouldn’t probably have said it anyway,” Biden said before abruptly cutting the story short, and continuing his prepared remarks.
"Kamala just caught herself calling Joe the Vice President 😂😂Of course Joe’s response is “Ho Ho Ho”😂pic.twitter.com/mPl1gjdZU9"
— Spitfire (@DogRightGirl) July 5, 2024
In another clip scrutinized and mocked by critics, Biden greeted the crowd with a lively “Ho! Ho! Ho! Happy Independence Day!”, after Harris almost mistakenly introduced him as the vice president.
Concerns over whether the 81-year-old politician can see out the presidential campaign and serve four more years in the Oval Office were reignited after Biden delivered a shaky performance in a televised debate with Trump last Thursday. The incumbent appeared frail and seemingly lost his train of thought on multiple occasions.
A post-debate Reuters/Ipsos poll found that one in three Democrats believe that Biden should quit, while some key donors have reportedly been looking at ways of replacing Biden with a stronger candidate on the 2024 ticket.