In a rare television interview on Friday (July 5), President Joe Biden dismissed concerns over his age and fitness to serve a second term.
“Do you have the mental and physical capacity to do it for another four years?” George Stephanopoulos of ABC News asked him during the 22-minute interview.
“I believe so. I wouldn’t be runnin’ if I didn’t think I did,” Biden said.
However, he refused to take a cognitive and neurological test and share the results with the people.
He acknowledged he had a “bad night” during his debate with former president and Republican challenger Donald Trump, saying he had been “sick”, “exhausted”, and had a “terrible cold”.
But he is the same man he was three-and-a-half years ago when he was elected president, he said in reply to a question. “I don’t think anybody’s more qualified to be President or win this race than me.”
Stephanopoulos asked: “If you can be convinced that you cannot defeat Donald Trump, will you stand down?”
Biden laughed. “It depends on– on if the Lord Almighty comes down and tells me that, I might do that.”
Who wants him out and who wants him in
Besides lambasting Donald Trump as a “pathological liar”, he acknowledged differences with Democratic Senator Mark Warner of Virginia, who wants him to step down.
“Well, Mark is a good man [But] Mark and I have a different perspective. I respect him,” he told Stephanopoulos.
He said he had spoken to senior Democrats Chuck Schumer, Hakeem Jeffries, Nancy Pelosi and Jim Clyburn, among others. “They all said I should stay in the race.”
Pressed further, he said: “Look. I mean, if the Lord Almighty came down and said, “Joe, get outta the race,” I’d get outta the race. [But] The Lord Almighty’s not comin’ down… ”
Though the 81-year-old president looked his age and spoke slowly, softly, and hoarsely, he often parted his lips in a rueful smile and proudly spoke of his record.
‘I’m runnin’ the world’
Asked if he would take an independent medical evaluation, including cognitive and neurological tests, Biden responded: “ I have a cognitive test every single day. Every day I have that test. Everything I do. You know, not only am I campaigning, but I’m running the world. [It] sounds like hyperbole, but we are the essential nation of the world.”
He had just spoken on the phone with the Israeli prime minister Benyamin Netanyahu and the new British prime minister Keir Starmer before the interview, he said,
“I’m the guy that put NATO together, the future. No one thought I could expand it. I’m the guy that shut Putin down. No one thought could happen. I’m the guy that put together a South Pacific initiative with AUKUS. I’m the guy that got 50 nations out– not only in Europe, outside of Europe as well to help Ukraine,” he added.
Biden rarely gives interviews. According to USA Today, he currently holds the record for the fewest press conferences and media interviews held by presidents in over 40 years.
Sceptics
But if he gave the interview to assuage concerns about his age and fitness, it failed to reassure the sceptics.
“He is dangerously out-of-touch with the concerns people have,” David Axelrod, a former Obama White House adviser, posted on X after the interview.
Illinois Representative Mike Quigley joined a group of more than half a dozen House Democrats who have said he would lose to Trump.
Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey did not ask him to step down but said: “I urge him to listen to the American people and carefully evaluate whether he remains our best hope to defeat Donald Trump.”
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