President Joe Biden is now chalking up his fumbling debate performance to a heavy travel schedule ahead of the face-off with Donald Trump — the latest in a series of explanations for an episode that has caused some Democrats to call for him to drop his reelection bid.
The president told donors Tuesday that he was offering “not an excuse but an explanation” for his struggles during the debate.
“I wasn’t very smart. I decided to travel around the world a couple of times … shortly before the debate,” Biden said at a fundraiser in McLean, Virginia. “I didn’t listen to my staff and I came back and then I almost fell asleep on stage.”
His remarks Tuesday marked the latest attempt to explain the poor debate performance and stave off a cascade of Democrats threatening to withdraw support or calling for him to drop out amid questions about his mental acuity at 81, nearly three years older than Trump.
He assumed responsibility for what happened on the debate stage, telling donors at the Virginia event that it “wasn’t very smart” to travel “around the world a couple times” before the debate.
Biden went to France for the 80th anniversary of D-Day in early June, then to Italy for the G7 meeting on June 12. The president followed that up with a Los Angeles fundraiser on June 15. He returned to Washington on June 16, or 11 days before the debate. He and his team holed up at Camp David for prep for nearly a week prior to the event with Trump in Atlanta.
Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, echoing the campaign’s post-debate response, on Tuesday said the president is “not a young man” and that “he’s a little slower than he used to be.” She and others have called Thursday’s performance a “bad night.” Aides during the event blamed the president’s hoarse voice and frequent coughing on a cold.
The effort to downplay the disastrous debate performance is a departure for Biden aides, who for his entire presidency have pushed back on stories about his age and suggestions that he has declined. Instead, they portrayed him as razor sharp in meetings and called accommodations in plain sight — including a transition to black dress sneakers, the use of lower stairs to access Air Force One and a truncated daily schedule — mere figments of the media’s imagination. The president has dismissed concerns with self-deprecating jokes.
