President Joe Biden tried on Friday to quell Democratic anxieties over his unsteady showing in his debate with former president Donald Trump, as members of his party closed ranks around him in an effort to shut down talk of replacing him.
Biden’s halting delivery and meandering comments, particularly early in the debate, fueled concerns from even members of his own party that at age 81 he’s not up for the task of leading the country for another four years.
Even before the debate, Biden’s age had been a liability with voters, and Thursday night’s faceoff appeared to reinforce the public’s deep-seated concerns before perhaps the largest audience he will garner before ballots are cast.
Biden appeared to acknowledge the criticism during a rally in Raleigh, North Carolina, saying “I don’t debate as well as I used to.” But he added, “I know how to do this job. I know how to get things done.” Speaking for 18 minutes, Biden repeatedly appeared far more animated than his showing the night before, and he excoriated Trump for his “lies” and campaign aimed at “revenge and retribution.”
“The choice in this election is simple,” Biden said. “Donald Trump will destroy our democracy. I will defend it.”
Democratic lawmakers on Friday acknowledged Biden’s poor showing, but tried to stop talk of replacing him as their standard-bearer, and instead tried to shift the focus onto Trump’s attacks and falsehoods that they hoped would remind voters of the daily turbulence of his presidency.
“Well, the president didn’t have a good night, but neither did Donald Trump with lie after lie and his dark vision for America,” North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper told The Associated Press on Friday, hours before he introduced the president in Raleigh. “We cannot send Donald Trump back to the White House. He’s an existential threat to our nation.”
Representative Ritchie Torres, Democrat of New York, said, “Since that performance last night, I had to take a few more antidepressants than usual. People have asked me, ‘Do I feel comfortable with the debate?’ You know, a Donald Trump presidency would cause me far greater discomfort than a Joe Biden debate performance.”
Biden’s campaign announced that it raised $14 million on debate day and the morning after, while Trump’s campaign said it raised more than $8 million from the start of the debate through the end of the night.
Vice President Kamala Harris, whom the Biden campaign sent out to defend his performance, was set to travel to Las Vegas, Nevada. She told CNN hours after the debate, “There was a slow start, but it was a strong finish.”
Biden and his allies were looking to brush aside concerns about his delivery to keep the focus on the choice for voters this November. They seized on Trump’s equivocations on whether he would accept the will of voters this time around, his refusal to condemn the rioters who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, trying to overturn his 2020 loss to Biden, and his embrace of the conservative-leaning Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade that had legalized abortion nationwide. But Democrats faulted Biden for fumbling his chance to press Trump on those issues.
Representative Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, who was the chairman of the House Jan. 6 committee, said that while everything Trump said about the attack that day was wrong, Biden flubbed the moment. “The president missed a golden opportunity, to correct the record, in the debate. That was a missed opportunity.”
Biden also fumbled on abortion rights, one of the most important issues for Democrats in this year’s election. He was unable to explain Roe v. Wade, the landmark Supreme Court ruling that legalized abortion nationwide. A conservative Supreme Court with three justices nominated by Trump overturned Roe two years ago.
As elected Democrats united behind Biden publicly, donors and party operatives shared panicked text messages and phone calls Thursday night and into Friday expressing their concern that Biden’s performance was so bad that he may be unelectable this fall.
But there were no immediate signs of organized efforts among donors, his campaign leadership or the Democratic National Committee to convince the president to step aside, according to interviews with several people who spoke on the condition of anonymity to share sensitive conversations.
Still, morale was poor among some Biden campaign staffers across the country, who had been encouraged by top campaign officials in Delaware to organize hundreds of debate watch parties to get as many eyes as possible on the Biden-Trump showdown. The morning after, some embarrassed lower-level campaign staffers privately expressed their desire for Biden to quit the race.
Under current Democratic Party rules, it would be difficult, if not impossible, to replace Biden as the party’s nominee without his cooperation or without party officials being willing to rewrite the rules at the August national convention.
Trump, meanwhile, flew to his golf club in Virginia, a onetime battleground that has shifted toward Democrats in recent years but that his aides believe can flip toward the Republican in November. He was set to hold at rally in Chesapeake Friday afternoon.