President Joe Biden’s face, eyes vacant and features immobile, looks back at us from the screen. The interview with George Stephanopoulos was blatantly meant to rescue him from the brink of political obsolescence after his disastrous debate performance against the presumed GOP nominee, Donald Trump, on Thursday, June 27, 2024. For “Uncle Joe,” everything was now riding on this one performance in the one-on-one with Stephanopoulos.
The President hoped to regain the support that he lost after the debate. For those who have been staunch supporters, debate night was the” before” and “after” of his candidacy’s viability. Before, we could still make excuses for Biden, rebutting to his critics that experience trumps age, that he had saved America from another four years of Trump in 2020, that he was still up to the job despite his current 81 years and the 85 he would carry by the end of a second term.
But after the debate, excuses no longer cut it; it didn’t really matter if he “aced” this interview, we know what we saw during the debate, and it was not reassuring. Even a successful interview with Stephanopoulos would still be too little, too late. And while confirmed democrats and people who simply fear the chaos of a hypothetical second Trump term will still vote for Biden, it will be with a heavy heart and much trepidation.
As it turned out, the Biden who resentfully and rebelliously answered Stephanopoulos’ timid but cogent questions was not very different from the one we saw on debate night.
Stephanopoulos started by tackling the elephant in the room, “are you frail?” he asked. Biden answered with a surly but combative, “no”. But the weak, raspy voice and the blank stare on his face said otherwise.
Bravely, Stephanopoulos then asks him if he would be willing to take a cognitive test. Biden does not answer, George repeats his question. Still no answer. Pressing the president, he finally gets a deflection instead of an answer: “I take a cognitive test every day, in everything I do” the President says and goes on to provide a list of his accomplishments with, “George. 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.”
The list is long and admirable, no doubt, but Uncle Joe misses the point: is he the same person? What is he able to do now, and what can he do in the next four years?
Biden genuinely thinks only he can save the country from Trump, especially in view of the SCOTUS ruling in favor of granting the president immunity for acts committed in the course of their tenure. “The character of the President’s gonna determine whether or not this Constitution is employed the right way.”
To make his point, he introduces a similarly long list of Trump’s immorality and incompetence, contrasting sharply with the one he gave of his accomplishments. “This is a guy who told us to put bleach in our arms to deal with COVID, with a million– over a million people died. This is a guy who talks about wantin’ to get rid of the healthcare provision we put in place. This is a guy who wants to give the power back to big pharma to be able to charge exorbitant prices for drugs. This is a guy who wants to undo every single thing I’ve done, every single– every single thing” he intones.
The rhetorical symmetry is a nice flourish, but it still doesn’t get to the heart of the main question and Stephanopoulos blurts it out: “Do you have the mental and physical capacity to do it for another four years?”
On the subject of his dismal approval ratings in the polls, Biden is adamant: he does not believe it. Stephanopoulos incredulously asks him: “Do you really believe you’re not behind right now?” Sadly, Biden looked genuinely convinced and outraged that anyone should believe he is six points behind Trump when in the past he had been ahead. He maintains that “All the pollsters I talk to tell me it’s a tossup. It’s a tossup. And when I’m behind, there’s only one poll I’m really far behind, CBS Poll and NBC, I mean, excuse me. And– uh—”
Will he get out of the race, Stephanopoulos wants to know. Given that the President is in denial about the polls, and that he firmly believes he is America’s rescuer, the short answer is: not a chance.
Stephanopoulos does not mince words. “And if Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries and Nancy Pelosi come down and say, ‘We’re worried that if you stay in the race, we’re gonna lose the House and the Senate,’ how will you respond?”
Disbelieving and repeatedly claiming that none of the democratic legislators were going to do that, Joe answers: “if the Lord Almighty came down and said, ‘Joe, get outta the race,’ I’d get outta the race.” But he added that “The Lord Almighty’s not comin’ down.”
In the end, Biden didn’t stumble over facts, he could remember long lists of achievements and goals, but without a doubt he came across as being mentally and physically frail and grievously out of touch with reality.
In the post-interview analysis ABC reporter Martha Raddatz hit the nail on the head: Biden is living in a cocoon, listening to a very small inner circle of people who love him and who are falsely telling him that he can win. But they are not protecting him, they are setting him (and America) up for a great fall.
Joe Biden loves America; he has done a good job in his four years, but simply put, he is ruining his legacy by defiantly dismissing the progressively shrill calls to step down. He is bleeding support because of his defiance.
He is a shadow of what he was even a year ago. By digging in his heels he is serving Trump’s agenda.
