RALEIGH, N.C.: President Joe Biden said Friday he intends to defeat Republican rival Donald Trump in the November presidential election, giving no indication he is considering withdrawing from the race after a poor debate performance that disappointed his fellow Democrats.
“I know I’m not a young man to put it bluntly,” an enthusiastic Biden said at a rally a day after a head-to-head clash with his Republican rival that was widely seen as a defeat for the 81-year-old president.
“I don’t walk as lightly as I used to, I don’t speak as fluently as I used to, I don’t argue as well as I used to,” he said, as the crowd chanted “four more years.”
“But I know how to tell the truth. I know how to do this job,” he said to huge applause, vowing that “when you fall, you will get back up.”
“I wouldn’t run again if I didn’t believe with all my heart and soul that I could do this job. The stakes are too high,” Biden said.
Biden hoped to allay concerns about his advanced age and expose Trump as a habitual liar.
But the president failed to counter his bombastic rival, who delivered a largely unchallenged set of false or misleading claims on everything from the economy to immigration.
On Friday, Biden delivered the line Democrats want to hear in the televised debate.
“Did you see Trump last night? I think he set — and I mean this sincerely — a new record for the most lies told in a single debate,” Biden said.
“Donald Trump is a true threat to this nation. He is a threat to our freedom. He is a threat to our democracy. He is literally a threat to everything America stands for.”
Biden’s verbal stumbles and occasional, rambling responses during the debate have fueled voters’ concerns that he will not be able to serve another four-year term and prompted some of his fellow Democrats to consider whether they could replace him as their candidate in the Nov. 5 U.S. election.
Campaign spokesman Michael Tyler said there are no ongoing discussions about that possibility. “We’d rather have one bad night than a candidate with a bad vision of where he wants to take the country,” he told reporters aboard Air Force One.
The campaign held an “all hands on deck” meeting Friday afternoon to assure staffers that Biden was not withdrawing from the race, according to two people familiar with the meeting.
Although Trump, 78, made a number of falsehoods during the debate, subsequent attention focused squarely on Biden, especially among Democrats.
Hakeem Jeffries, the leader of the Democratic Party in the US House of Representatives, avoided a direct answer when asked whether he still believes in Biden’s candidacy.
“I support this ticket. I support the Democrat majority in the Senate. We will do everything in our power to take back the House in November. Thank you all,” he told reporters.
Some other Democrats also objected to being asked whether Biden should remain in the race. “It’s the president’s decision,” Democratic Sen. Jack Reed told a local Rhode Island television station.
Obama speaks out
But several top party officials, including former presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, have said they support Biden.
“There are some bad debate nights. Trust me, I know. But this election is still a choice between someone who has spent his life fighting for ordinary people and someone who only cares about himself,” wrote former Democratic President Barack Obama in X.
But Biden’s show of loyalty and Biden’s intransigence in North Carolina were not enough for the New York Times.
The New York Times, which endorsed Biden in 2020, has called on him to drop out of the race to give the Democratic Party a better chance of defeating Trump by choosing another candidate. “The greatest public service Biden can do right now is to announce that he will not seek reelection,” the editorial said.
A logical – but not automatic – candidate to replace Biden would be his vice president, Kamala Harris, who loyally defended his performance in the debates.
Biden’s campaign said it raised $14 million on Thursday and Friday, with its peak hour of fundraising coming right after Thursday night’s debate. Trump’s campaign said it raised $8 million on debate night.
A bright spot for Biden: Preliminary viewership data showed that just 48 million Americans watched the debate, far fewer than the 73 million who watched the candidates’ last clash in 2020.
Biden, already the oldest American president in history, faced only token opposition during the party’s months-long nominating contest and won enough support to secure his spot as the Democratic nominee.
Similarly, Trump defeated his intraparty rivals earlier this year, setting the stage for a long and bitter general election fight.
If Biden were to concede, the party would have less than two months to choose another candidate at its national convention, which begins Aug. 19. It’s a potentially chaotic process that could pit Kamala Harris, the first black U.S. vice president, against governors and other officials who have been mentioned as possible successors.
Trump’s allies triumph
As Democrats began bickering heatedly, Trump allies tried to exude a calm sense of confidence.
US House of Representatives Speaker Mike Johnson, a ranking Republican, said Biden was clearly “not fit for the job.”
“Donald Trump is the only man on this stage who is qualified to be the next president,” he said. “The election can’t come soon enough.”
At an afternoon rally in Chesapeake, Virginia, Trump told supporters he had won “a great victory over a man who wants to destroy our country.”
“Joe Biden’s problem isn’t his age,” Trump said. “It’s his competence.”
Trump advisers said the debate would strengthen their chances in Democratic-leaning states such as Virginia, which has not endorsed a Republican presidential candidate since 2004.
Earlier, some Trump supporters said they were shocked by Biden’s poor showing. “I’m afraid they’re going to replace him and put in someone more competitive,” said Mike Boatman, who said he has attended more than 90 Trump rallies.
Fundraisers for Trump said they fielded enthusiastic calls from donors. “Anyone who raises money knows it’s time to give back to donors, and this is one of those watershed moments,” said Ed McMullen, who served as ambassador to Switzerland during Trump’s presidency.
Questions about Trump’s fitness for office have also arisen over his conviction last month in New York for concealing a bribe paid to a porn star, his attempts to overturn the 2020 election and his chaotic term in office.
He is scheduled to be sentenced July 11, just days before his party meets to formally nominate him. He still faces three other indictments, though none seem likely to go to trial before November.
Biden’s shaky debate performance sparked astonishing reactions around the world on Friday, prompting public calls for him to step down and likely leaving some of America’s closest allies eagerly awaiting Trump’s return.
The second debate is scheduled for September 10.