by Sharon Rondeau
(Jul. 6, 2024) — In an interview Friday afternoon in Madison, WI, ABC News anchor George Stephanopoulos, a former Democrat Party adviser and Clinton White House communications director, interviewed Joe Biden in the wake of his disastrous June 27 presidential debate with 2024 presumptive Republican nominee and 45th president Donald J. Trump.
Earlier Friday Biden rallied for approximately 17 minutes to a crowd in Madison, touting his accomplishments in the White House and insisting he will not quit the race in the wake of increasingly strident calls for him to withdraw.
The election is four months away on November 5.
The debate was conducted under unusual rules the Biden campaign requested, including that no third-party candidates could participate, there would be no studio audience, and the opponent’s microphone was to be turned off when the other was speaking.
Some questioned Biden’s cognitive ability as early as the 2020 election, which Biden largely conducted from a basement office at his home in Delaware, purportedly due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Surveys conducted afterward show many Americans believe the election was influenced by a letter signed by 51 current and former members of the U.S. intelligence community labeling the Hunter Biden laptop a “Russian information operation.”
In fact, the New York Post‘s breaking story of October 14, 2020 reporting Joe Biden was aware of his son’s overseas business dealings despite his denials, was accurate, and Biden is now under investigation by several House committees for the role he played in securing various receipts of millions of dollars from countries such as Ukraine, Russia, China and others.
During a presidential debate in 2020, Joe Biden referred to the open letter signed by the 51 intel operatives which he undoubtedly knew was misleading as to the laptop’s authenticity since his then-campaign adviser, Antony Blinken, now the secretary of state, organized the effort.
According to congressional testimony by former CIA Deputy Director Michael Morrell, the idea was coined to help Biden win the election.
The contents of the laptop as reported by the Post and others was verified as authentic by an FBI agent at Hunter Biden’s trial last month in Delaware on three charges of firearms violations which led to conviction. According to earlier reporting, the FBI had possession of the laptop since at least November 2019.
At the Madison rally, Biden appeared animated and energized but less so during his sit-down with ABC.
The network provided a transcript of the interview, but the transcription appearing below is the writer’s own taken directly from the video.
“I just had a bad night; I don’t know why,” Biden told Stephanopoulos of his debate performance, during which he often looked dazed and at times spoke unintelligibly and nonsensically. He then said he was “feelin’ terrible” and underwent some medical tests to determine if he had “some infection” or a “virus.”
“I didn’t; I just had a really bad cold,” Biden said.
When Stephanopoulos asked, Biden said he “didn’t think” he reviewed footage of the debate.
“What were you experiencing as you were going through the debate? Did you know how badly it was going?” Stephanopoulos pressed.
“The whole way I prepared, nobody’s fault, mine; nobody’s fault but mine,” Biden told Stephanopoulos. “I prepared what I usually would do, sittin’ down as I did come back with foreign leaders or National Security Council for explicit detail, and I realized about partway through that, you know, you could quote the New York Times had me down ten points before the debate, nine now or whatever the h*** it is, the fact of the matter is that what I looked at is that he also lied 28 times; I couldn’t — I mean, the way the debate ran — not — my fault, no one else’s fault, no one else’s fault.”
Last weekend, the media reported the Biden family gathered at Camp David to discuss the campaign’s future with the result that Hunter and Biden’s wife Jill convinced him to remain in the race. Reports indicate the two may also have suggested Biden fire the advisers who helped him prepare for the debate over the week preceding it.
It would take “the Lord Almighty” to convince him to exit the race, Biden told Stephanopoulos when asked.
Biden then claimed he attended ten subsequent campaign “events” in North Carolina and “Georgia” with “large crowds” and “no slipping.”
The “Georgia” appearance was the “watch party” in Atlanta held directly after the debate.
“How quickly did it come to you that you were having that bad night?” Stephanopoulos asked, to which Biden responded, “It came to me I was having a bad night when I realized that even when I was answering a question and they turned his mike off, he was still shouting, and I let it distract me. I’m not blaming it on — but I realized that I just wasn’t in control.”
“Part of the other concern is that this seems to have fit into a pattern of decline that has been reported on recently,” Stephanopoulos said, citing a New York Times July 2 article with the headline, “Biden’s Lapses are Said to be Increasingly Common and Worrisome.”
When Stephanopoulos uttered the word “decline,” Biden went from a serious facial expression to sporting a wide smile.
The entire exchange can be viewed here.
A second presidential debate is scheduled for September 10 with ABC News hosting.
In February Megyn Kelly aired a video montage of Biden’s public service, beginning with a Senate address in 1993.
Going back farther to 1976, the then-33-year-old Biden spoke to San Diego reporter Harold Keane about his expectations for a presidential debate to take place the following week between President Gerald R. Ford (R) and Georgia Gov. Jimmy Carter (D).
On November 21, 1972, the day after Biden reached the constitutionally-required age of 30 to serve in the U.S. Senate, ABC News aired a report about Biden’s “upset” election against Republican J. Caleb Boggs.