Even Biden knows he flopped during the debate

• President Joe Biden admitted his first debate did not go well.

• “I don’t debate as well as I used to,” Biden said at a rally, listing other skills that have declined.

• But Biden remained clear that he’s not going anywhere.

President Joe Biden admitted Friday what the nation already knew: He bungled his first debate against former President Donald Trump.

“I don’t debate as well as I used to,” Biden told supporters at a rally in North Carolina.

Even Vice President Kamala Harris admitted her running mate had “a slow start.”

Biden admitted that his debate skills aren’t the only thing that has declined.

“I know I’m not a young man, to state the obvious,” Biden said, his voice rising. “I don’t walk as smoothly as I used to. I don’t speak as smoothly as I used to. I don’t debate as well as I used to.”

But the president continued to stress that he is the best option to defeat Trump in November.

“But I know what I do know: I know how to tell the truth,” he said. “I know what is right and wrong. And I know how to do this job. I know how to get things done. And I know, as millions of Americans know, that when you get knocked down, you get back up.”

Biden reiterated that he is up to the task.

“I wouldn’t be running anymore if I didn’t believe with all my heart and soul that I could do this job,” he said.

During a disastrous debate on Thursday evening, Biden gave hoarse and sometimes meandering answers. At one point, Trump even mocked him, saying, “I really don’t know what he said at the end of that sentence. I don’t think he knows what he said either.”

It wasn’t just Republicans who criticized his performance.

After the debate, Democrats began to sound the alarm, reconsidering whether they could get the president to step aside or even push him off the ballot. Many Democrats worry that Biden’s performance was particularly disastrous because it underscored the biggest concern Americans already had about him: his age. He is the oldest president ever to run for reelection; if he were to win, he would be 86 years old by the end of his second term.

“There will be discussions about whether he should continue,” David Axelrod, a former senior White House adviser to Obama, said on CNN after the debate.

In a snap poll of debate viewers, the vast majority said Trump was the clear winner. According to the CNN poll, 67% of viewers thought the former president won, compared to the 33% who thought Biden did a better job.

No top Democrats currently in office have called on the president to resign. Senior Democrats and others in the party gave mostly terse answers to reporters on Capitol Hill when asked about Biden’s position.

“In terms of performance it wasn’t great, but in terms of values ​​it far exceeded the other candidate,” Nancy Pelosi, former Speaker of the House of Representatives, told reporters, according to The New York Times.

And as if Biden’s speech wasn’t already a clear message to concerned Democrats, the president walked off the stage as Tom Petty’s defiant hit “I Won’t Back Down” played in the background.

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