Joe Biden, step aside? Sure doesn't sound like it
U.S. president gives fiery campaign speech at North Carolina campaign event day after debate disaster
Joe Biden, step aside? It certainly doesn't sound like it judging from public comments Friday from several key quarters: the candidate himself, his closest adviser and his party's heavyweights.
The U.S. president gave no indication he intends to withdraw from the election a day after a disastrous debate performance that had some Democrats pleading for his exit.
He gave a remarkably fiery campaign speech in North Carolina – energetic, on point, in stark contrast to the frail, forgetful display the previous night on the most critical stage of the campaign.
He was, however, reading off a teleprompter on Friday, loudly and fluidly. That's unlike the debate where he struggled to improvise and at one point appeared to suffer a 14-second cognitive glitch.
Biden did not directly address the calls for him to step down, but he told a boisterous partisan crowd in Raleigh, N.C., that he plans to pull off an upset in that Republican-leaning state.
"I intend to win this state in November," Biden said. "We win here, and we win the election."
A memorably feeble debate performance had Democrats immediately speculating about Biden stepping aside, so that he could be replaced on the ticket.
From TV panels to newspaper columns, normally supportive voices urged Biden to drop out.
Democratic pundits said their phones were flooded with messages of panic from like-minded partisans who now fear the party is sleepwalking to electoral disaster under Biden.
Candidates in down-ballot races are dissociating their campaigns from the president's.
But there was no evidence of a critical mass of pressure that might force Biden to quit, so that his party might nominate a replacement at its August convention.
The first lady's role
The tone was set for Biden's speech by his closest adviser: First lady Jill Biden. Viewed by some as the only person capable of convincing her husband to stand down, she showed no inclination of suggesting that.
"There is no one I would rather have sitting in the Oval Office right now than my husband," she said in a warm-up speech before the president's address.
She defended her husband's performance in the debate. "[He] told the truth, and Donald Trump told lie, after lie, after lie," she said.
Supporters repeatedly chanted, "Four more years."
Voices in Congress supporting Biden were loud, and on the record, compared to the doubters being quoted anonymously in news reports, indicating that any rebellion has failed to reach a tipping point.
But the highest-profile on-the-record backing came from the most popular figure within the Democratic Party, Biden's former boss: Barack Obama.
Closing ranks around his former vice-president, Obama tweeted a link to a fundraising page on Biden's campaign website and offered words of encouragement.
"Bad debate nights happen. Trust me, I know," Obama said, referring to his own lacklustre encounter against Mitt Romney in 2012.
He said this election remains a choice between someone, Biden, who cares about ordinary people and tells the truth, against someone who doesn't, Trump.
"Last night didn't change that, and it's why so much is at stake in November."
No obvious replacement
Making matters more complicated in any talk of replacing him is the fact that there's no consensus on a replacement. Many Democrats fear the logical backup, Vice-President Kamala Harris, is too unpopular, and alternatives, such as some state governors, would face other hurdles, including the legal right to use donations to the Biden-Harris ticket.
"I refuse to join the Democratic vultures on Biden's shoulder after the debate," tweeted Sen. John Fetterman, who suffered a stroke during his 2022 Senate campaign in Pennsylvania.
"No one knows more than me that a rough debate is not the sum total of the person and their record."
Biden did address, obliquely, the criticisms of his debate performance. He acknowledged his age and said he doesn't speak, move or debate like he used to.
'I know I'm not a young man'
"I know I'm not a young man – to state the obvious," he said, drawing on ovation.
"I know how to tell the truth. I know right from wrong. I know how to do this job. ... And I know what millions of Americans know: When you get knocked down, you get right back up."
He contrasted his debate performance to Trump's, which he cast as awash in extremism and lies. Trump refused, for example, to show any contrition for his supporters attacking the U.S. Capitol in 2021 and refused to say unequivocally that he would accept the 2024 election results.
Biden gave the crowd his word: If he didn't feel up to being president, he said, he wouldn't be running.
"The stakes are too high," he said. "Donald Trump is a genuine threat to this nation."
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