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Biden’s advisers downplayed his poor performance during the debate, calling it an incident.
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Meanwhile, the president emphasized his age, saying he no longer speaks and debates as well as he used to.
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Experts say the attempt to convince voters that this will not happen again will be a setback for the campaign.
Aides to President Joe Biden defended his performance at the debate, dismissing it as an insignificant, one-off incident in a long campaign.
According to The New York Times, the president’s advisers are trying to portray Biden’s performance, which many have called a disaster, as insignificant in the long term.
According to Jen O’Malley Dillon, Biden’s chief campaign strategist, any drop in the polls could be due to an “overblown media narrative.”
Quentin Fulks, the president’s deputy campaign manager, told his staff that “nothing fundamental has changed about this election” after the debate, The Times reported.
Many disagree. Although both Biden and Trump did poorly, the consensus was that the former lost.
This was mainly due to his confusing speech and the difficulty he had in keeping track of his answers, with commentators wondering whether the 81-year-old man was too old for the job.
Ironically, Biden’s aides also appeared to blame the president’s age when discussing his debate performance with Axios. The anonymous staffers said he struggles to function outside of a six-hour window between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m.
Biden’s defense could be used against him
Thomas Gift, a senior lecturer in politics at University College London, told Business Insider that Biden’s defense could be used against him later in the campaign.
“Trying to convince Americans that the president is fine from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. is hardly reassuring. This is not a part-time job at McDonald’s. This is the presidency of the United States,” Gift said, adding that domestic and foreign crises do not unfold “only during normal business hours.”
Biden echoed his advisers’ comments during a speech in Raleigh on Friday, telling attendees that he doesn’t “speak or debate as well as he used to.”
“But I know what I do know — I know how to tell the truth … I know what’s right and wrong. And I know how to do this job. I know how to get things done. And I know, like millions of Americans, that when you get knocked down, you get back up,” he said.
Biden’s decision to highlight criticism of his age could backfire, Gift said, adding that it could become even more prominent in voters’ minds.
“Many Americans would rightly ask: What else is Biden not doing as well as he used to? Dealing with foreign leaders as well as he used to? Negotiating with Congress as well as he used to? Making decisions about war and peace as well as he used to?” Gift said.
As BI’s Katherine Tangalakis-Lippert and Erin Snodgrass previously noted, Biden is using a Trumpian strategy: Ask voters not to write him off, despite the clear shortcomings in his campaign.
Andrew Payne, an author and foreign policy expert, told BI that Biden’s campaign may also regret presenting the debate as a one-off event, as the president could face problems at campaign events in the future.
“By portraying Biden’s performance as a blip, campaign surrogates are attempting to reset expectations, which carries some risk if the president fails to live up to them again the next time he goes toe-to-toe with Donald Trump,” said Payne, author of “War on the Ballot: How the Election Cycle Shapes Presidential Decision-Making in War.”
Payne pointed out that the “blip” story could be true, especially since he was “significantly more confident in his public comments the day after the debate.”
Gift is unconvinced, saying there is little evidence Biden will overcome his public speaking problems.
“It is difficult for Biden’s team to characterize the debate as ‘just an incident,’ given that the White House has largely shielded him from public view for the past four years, except for pre-written speeches read via teleprompter,” Gift said.
“He has given virtually no interviews and the number of press conferences with questions and answers is much lower than that of his predecessors,” he added.
Read the original article on Business Insider
