Last night, NBC aired an interview that Lester Holt conducted with Joe Biden, the most recent in a series of unscripted events designed to ease voters’ worries after the president’s disastrous June 27 debate. It is hard to imagine this latest performance doing that. Biden was defensive and rambling. When Holt asked how he could be sure there wouldn’t be a future repeat of his debate “episode,” the president at first looked confused, asking, “What happened?” and then let out an indecipherable noise before claiming no such repeat would occur.
This was only Biden’s latest less-than-confidence-inspiring public appearance. During an interview with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos on July 3—also defensive, also rambling—Biden said “I don’t think I did” watch his own debate. During last week’s NATO summit, he initially introduced Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky as “President Putin” and later referred to Kamala Harris as “Vice President Trump.” On Sunday night, the president delivered an Oval Office address in response to the failed assassination attempt against Donald Trump. Although his remarks seemed heartfelt, his delivery was flagging and often garbled. He repeatedly called the “ballot box” the “battle box.” He seemed to come perilously close to saying that we need to “make America great again” before realizing his mistake.
Biden defenders tend to dismiss these kinds of moments as mere gaffes, or as a result of his stutter. In the face of ever more dismal polling and voters’ growing concerns about the president’s cognitive ability, a spin machine of Biden aides and allies continues to insist that Democrats should stick with their candidate—that he is the person best situated to beat Trump and that he is capable of serving another four years. With each day, their growing list of talking points and excuses becomes only more implausible and irrational. These arguments require—sometimes implicitly, sometimes outright—that the American people believe a variety of assertions about the president that defy our own observations and experiences, and stretch the bounds of common sense.
We are asked to believe that there are two Bidens. The one voters see in public might frequently look exhausted and confused. He struggles to remember names and details, and he answers easy questions (say, about abortion) with bizarre non sequiturs (say, about murderous immigrants). By contrast, people who spend time with the president insist he is sharp as a tack and in command of the issues. He allegedly maintains such a packed schedule that he leaves his younger aides trying to keep up with him.
These claims imply that it is not the job of America’s high
We are asked to believe that Biden’s apparent cognitive difficulties are not indicative of an underlying condition, and that he does not need to prove his cognitive health to the American public. Even though a Parkinson’s doctor has visited the White House eight times in eight months, and even though Biden and his team have given inconsistent accounts of the president’s medical exams since the debate, and even though Parkinson’s experts have said that he appears to have potential symptoms of the disease, the public should accept Biden’s refusal to take a cognitive exam and release the results.
We are asked to believe that the June 27 debate was just one bad night, that presidents can have 90-minute stretches of befuddlement. We are asked to believe that this will not happen again, even though those close to Biden have told reporters that similar incidents have been happening more frequently since at least this spring, and even though George Clooney, a high-powered fundraiser for the president, has said that the Biden we saw on the debate stage is the same Biden he has seen behind the scenes.
We are asked, by the president himself, to believe that those who want him to withdraw from the race are “elites.” This is despite the fact that 85 percent of voters in a recent ABC poll said that Biden is too old to be president, and 67 percent said that he should exit the race; 56 percent of Democrats said the same.
est elected official to inspire public confidence and project competence and strength to U.S. citizens, allies, and enemies. The fact that Biden looks frail and that we often struggle to make out what he’s saying is irrelevant. That he reminds us of our ailing parents and grandparents is also irrelevant. All that is relevant is his impressive policy record, and his commitment to serving another four years.
Biden’s defenders encourage us to believe that extemporaneous public speaking is not an important part of the president’s job. He frequently has trouble communicating without a script, and has come to rely on teleprompters even in small group settings, but we are told that this is perfectly understandable and “not unusual.” Nor is Biden’s reliance on a teleprompter, which he sometimes has issues reading from, a sign that anything has changed about his mental fitness. And when he accidentally reads a cue out loud—during a call with the Congressional Progressive Caucus on Saturday, he reportedly read a note from his staff to “stay positive you are sounding defensive”—these mistakes are just ordinary slipups.
We are asked to believe that it’s okay for presidents to keep bankers’ hours. Biden’s aides tell reporters that they try to keep important events within the window when he is consistently sharp and focused, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. It should not concern us that the president can be relied on for only a quarter of the day; we should not be worried about crises that might crop up at other times, including overnight. Although he misses the occasional meeting with a world leader because he needs to go to bed, this is apparently not an issue. We are asked to believe that running a presidential campaign is more taxing and stressful than being president, and that Biden can at least handle the latter, even though the former seems to leave him tired to the point of incoherence.
We are asked to believe that the nuclear briefcase is safe in Biden’s hands, and will be for another four years. Although the United States is currently entangled in Ukraine’s conflict with Russia and although Taiwan looms as a flash point with China, we should have no anxiety about Biden’s ability to act decisively and with good judgment in the event of a foreign-policy crisis. It is estimated that the president might have only minutes to respond to a nuclear incident; Biden, despite his hourly limitations, will perform with competence should he be woken up in the middle of the night with the world on the brink of Armageddon.
We are asked to believe that trying to force Biden out of the race—to potentially be replaced by Kamala Harris, who would be the first Black female president if elected—is an agenda being pushed primarily by white men, one that ignores the will of voters of color. We are told that Biden is the favored candidate of the Black community, and that Black Americans will be furious if he withdraws, even though a recent Economist/YouGov poll found that 49 percent of Black Americans think Biden “probably” or “definitely” should step aside, compared with 34 percent who think he should remain in the race.
We are asked to believe that Biden is the Democratic candidate who can beat Donald Trump, despite the fact that the president was behind in the polls even before the debate. As a matter of fact, Biden and his allies say, we shouldn’t trust the polls. Polls that say Biden is bleeding minority voters are wrong. Polls that show Biden losing must-win swing states are wrong. Polls that reveal Biden’s horrendous approval rating are wrong. Any polls that are bad are wrong.
We are asked to believe that Biden remains the best candidate to beat Trump after the attempt on his opponent’s life, even as that event—and Trump’s defiant response to it—only further highlights the apparent gap between the vitality of the two candidates.
We are asked, implicitly at least, to believe that Biden will turn the reins over gracefully and voluntarily to Harris in the event that he becomes unable to perform his duties in a second term. Even though he clings to power now, he won’t in the future.
And what are we asked not to believe? We are asked not to believe our own instincts, our own senses, our own head and heart: If you read any of the numerous reports that say Biden’s own allies believe he has no chance of winning in November, then what you read is wrong. If Biden looks too old to you, then what you see is wrong. If Biden sounds too weak and too confused to you, then what you hear is wrong. The problem is you, and your expectations and standards for a sitting American president.
“The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears,” Orwell wrote in 1984. In 2024, this remains, as Orwell put it, the “most essential command.”
Tyler Austin Harper is an assistant professor of environmental studies at Bates College and a contributing writer at The Atlantic.
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