When Joe Biden had an irregular performance during the debate, Democrats in the House of Representatives rallied behind their presidential candidate on Friday. Possible explanations they mentioned included a cold, excessive preparation and the format of the debate itself.
Biden sometimes seemed to lose the thread of his thoughts and missed obvious openings to go on the attack in Thursday night’s CNN debate. The performance prompted some party officials and commentators I wonder if Biden should step back from the race in favor of Vice President Kamala Harris or another Democrat.
But on the final day in Washington for House lawmakers before they leave for a weeklong recess, many Democratic officials said Biden may have been unsettled by several factors.
“I’m not sure if it was too much preparation and not enough strategy. But it’s the beginning, not the end,” said Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.)
Rep. Richard Neal (D-Mass.) also raised the possibility that Biden had overprepared. Biden reportedly spent much of the days leading up to the debate rehearsing.
“Sometimes the spontaneity of the conversation is better than the script,” Neal says. “In most of these debates you memorize everything. I have helped public debaters and I think sometimes consultants can go overboard with the script.”
Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.), who was at the debate site as a campaign invitee, said he heard early in the debate that Biden was feeling unwell.
“It’s clear he had some sort of sore throat, there’s no question about it,” Garcia. “Voters are not going to make a decision because someone has a sore throat. They’re going to make a decision because there was one person with a criminal record and another person who is a criminal who led an attack on the Capitol.”
Congresswoman Joyce Beatty (D-Ohio) said the setting, an empty auditorium with only the candidates, moderators and camera crews, may also have thrown Biden off.
“It brings a different energy when you have an audience and you have people and you have supporters there. I found it a strange process,” she said.
“When you cut people’s microphones off and you’re looking at them and you’re still trying to lip-sync what they’re saying, I don’t like that process.”
But even apart from those statements, some Democrats said it simply mattered more that Trump kept repeating his statements. untruths than that Biden had difficulty making his own points.
“I cannot ignore the fact that Donald Trump lied to the American people at the beginning, in the middle, at the end and throughout the entire debate,” Democratic Majority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) told reporters. , to reporters.
Jeffries’ predecessor, former Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), said Biden got off to a bad start but improved later in the debate.
“Again, integrity versus dishonesty,” she said. ‘How come the press can’t hold its own [Trump] to his lies? That’s what I don’t understand. One lie after another.”
Some Democrats have reportedly considered pushing Biden to resign or be ousted.
Business Insider’s Bryan Metzger reported that Rep. Greg Landsman (D-Ohio) said this He wasn’t sure what would happen next and that Biden and his team “needed to get together and have a conversation.”
And Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.) Andrew Solender of Axios told that “every superdelegate, every Democrat, has to do a lot of soul-searching.”
Republicans said Biden’s performance only confirmed their criticism that he is not mentally ready for the job of president.
Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) said he would sponsor a nonbinding resolution urging Biden’s Cabinet to begin the process of replacing him as president under the 25th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
“Internally it was very clear that the president’s status and capacity were deteriorating, but last night it all became visible to everyone,” Roy said.
Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said Biden Cabinet members “need to search their hearts” about invoking the 25th Amendment.
“If I were in the Biden administration right now, I would be having that discussion with my Cabinet-level colleagues,” he said.
Thompson, the Mississippi Democrat, chalked up Biden’s problems to simply a bad night.
“We are all human. Sometimes we have good nights. Sometimes we have bad nights,” he said.
