President Biden told Democratic governors during a private meeting at the White House on Wednesday evening that he needed to get more sleep and had instructed his staff to avoid scheduling events for him after 8 p.m., according to people familiar with his comments.<\/p>\n
The remarks, which emerged as the president prepares to mark the Independence Day holiday with public remarks ahead of a fireworks display Thursday, suggest that Biden now believes he must make changes to improve his public appearances.<\/p>\n
The president\u2019s remark in Wednesday\u2019s meeting came after Gov. Josh Green (D-Hawaii), a longtime physician who has worked in emergency rooms, asked about his physical condition at the meeting, an hour-long discussion with the governors in which Biden was seeking to reassure them of his political standing, physical well-being and path to reelection.<\/p>\n
Biden responded that he had received a medical checkup since last week\u2019s presidential debate and remains in good health. \u201cIt\u2019s just my brain,\u201d he said, according to people briefed on the meeting, a remark that staffers were quick to describe as a jest.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was clearly making a joke and then said \u2018all kidding aside,\u2019 \u201d said Jen O\u2019Malley Dillon, Biden\u2019s campaign chair.<\/p>\n
The need for more sleep marked another explanation from Biden for a debate last Thursday in which he stumbled over words and sometimes struggled to complete sentences. The president has attributed the performance to being sick, suffering from jet lag, having a mind crammed with numbers and not listening to staff.<\/p>\n
A trio of governors emerged from Wednesday\u2019s meeting to talk to reporters and pledge their support for Biden, while others released statements and social media posts. The meeting was mostly upbeat, according to participants, but there were also signs of the ongoing turbulence in the aftermath of the debate, when Biden stumbled over his words and at times struggled to complete sentences.<\/p>\n
Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham (D-N.M.) and Gov. Janet Mills (D-Maine), for example, told Biden that they were worried that he might lose their states, according to participants in the meeting. In 2020, Biden won in New Mexico by 11 points, and Maine by 9 points. Several of the details about the meeting were first reported by Politico and the New York Times.<\/p>\n
In radio interviews Thursday morning, Biden acknowledged his poor debate performance while trying to focus on his record as president and turn attention back to presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump, whom he depicts as a threat to America\u2019s basic values.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had a bad night,\u201d he said on \u201cThe Earl Ingram Show,\u201d a Wisconsin-based program. \u201cI screwed up, I made a mistake. \u2026 That\u2019s 90 minutes onstage. Look at what I\u2019ve done in 3\u00bd years.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re going to win this election,\u201d Biden added. \u201cWe\u2019re going to just beat Donald Trump like we did in 2020. I\u2019m going to beat him again.\u201d<\/p>\n
The president took the opportunity to cite some of the disparaging ways Trump has talked about Black voters, saying, \u201cI\u2019m sorry to get so worked up, but he has just done terrible things in the community, and he has about as much interest and concern for Black and minority communities as the man on the moon does.\u201d<\/p>\n
Biden also noted that the interview was airing on the Fourth of July, and turned to what he views as an existential threat to democracy. \u201cWe cannot, cannot, cannot let this guy win,\u201d he said. \u201cIt would just be disaster for America.\u201d<\/p>\n
In a separate interview with Andrea Lawful-Sanders, a Black radio host based in Philadelphia, Biden said the next president could appoint \u201cat least two more justices, maybe more\u201d to the Supreme Court. Asked about his message to voters who may sit the election out, he said, \u201cIf you don\u2019t do something about it, you\u2019re to blame.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Republican National Committee took a different approach to the Independence Day holiday, saying Wednesday that thanks to \u201cBidenflation,\u201d this will be the most expensive Fourth of July on record. Citing the American Farm Bureau, the RNC said that ground beef costs 11 percent more than last year, buns are up 7 percent and lemonade up 12 percent.<\/p>\n
\u201cBiden\u2019s policies are to blame for inflation and Americans know it,\u201d the statement said.<\/p>\n
But the Biden team sought to use the holiday to shift the discussion from the president\u2019s shaky performance in last week\u2019s debate, as Democrats attacked Trump as a would-be king who would trample the country\u2019s founding principles if he regains the White House. \u201cThis July Fourth, Donald Trump Wants to Make America a Monarchy Again,\u201d the Biden campaign warned in an email blast.<\/p>\n
The campaign released an ad saying last week\u2019s Supreme Court decision granting presidents immunity for their official actions would enable Trump to rule by fiat.<\/p>\n
\u201cAmerica was founded in defiance of a king,\u201d the ad intones, to ominous music and imagery of the Statue of Liberty shrouded in haze. \u201cHe\u2019s already led an insurrection, and threatened to be a dictator \u2018on Day One.\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n
Democratic leaders have long tried to frame the presidential race as a showdown between Biden and a would-be tyrant who would destroy the country\u2019s core values of freedom and democracy. They have cited Trump\u2019s vows to target his political opponents, his embrace of the Jan. 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol, his harsh statements about immigrants and similar rhetoric.<\/p>\n
The presidential debate abruptly shifted the conversation onto terrain far more friendly to Trump. Leading Democrats and Republicans immediately became embroiled in a debate over Biden\u2019s age \u2014 he is 81 and Trump is 78 \u2014 and his ability to run a campaign and serve as president for four more years.<\/p>\n
Against that backdrop, the White House has faced questions in recent days about whether it would be willing to release additional medical records on Biden.<\/p>\n
White House spokesman Andrew Bates confirmed Thursday that Biden did have a check-in with his doctor several days after the debate, as the president had told the governors. \u201cThe president was seen to check on his cold and was recovering well,\u201d Bates said.<\/p>\n
But White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre twice told reporters Wednesday that the president had not had any medical exams since his annual physical in February.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were able to talk to his doctor about that. And that is a no,\u201d she said in response to a question. Administration officials said Thursday that she was referring to a full physical exam, and that his recent check-in did not involve a range of tests.<\/p>\n
But asked later in the briefing about seeing a doctor, particularly in the lead-up to the debate if he had a cold, she also said no. \u201cHe did not. He did not get checked out by the doctor,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s a cold, guys. It\u2019s a cold. And I know that, it affects everybody differently. We\u2019ve all had colds, and so no, he was not checked by the doctor.\u201d<\/p>\n
In recent days, Biden\u2019s top advisers have accepted that they have a short window to reassure a broad swath of the Democratic Party that he is fit for office or face a significant push for him to step aside. Thursday\u2019s commentary about Trump\u2019s authoritarian rhetoric is part of a parallel effort to remind voters of the former president\u2019s own vulnerabilities and frame him as an \u201cunpatriotic\u201d figure.<\/p>\n
Jaime Harrison, chair of the Democratic National Committee, sent out a holiday email warning that \u201cthe soul of the nation is at stake.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWill we vote for a president who believes in our democracy and in the principles of justice, liberty, and equality?\u201d Harrison wrote. \u201cOr will we succumb to a wannabe dictator on \u2018day one,\u2019 who will put himself above our constitution, our principles, and the democracy that we hold dear.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
President Biden told Democratic governors during a private meeting at the White House on Wednesday evening that he needed to get more sleep and had instructed his staff to avoid scheduling events for him after 8 p.m., according to people familiar with his comments. The remarks, which emerged as the president prepares to mark the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":5804,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5803","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5803","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5803"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5803\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5804"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5803"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5803"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5803"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}