Joe Biden’s interview with George Stephanopoulos could have been worse

Joe Biden didn’t make any major mistakes in his Friday interview with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos. That’s the best you can say. He helped himself only because, after a dreadful week, he didn’t hurt himself. No hits, no runs, no errors. 

Stephanopoulos concentrated almost entirely on two topics: Biden’s health and his dreadful poll numbers, which threaten not only Democratic control of the White House but also their chance to control the House or Senate. The best characterization of down-ballot Democrats today is “hair on fire.” Joe Biden’s interview didn’t douse the flames. 

Still, on the crucial issues Stephanopoulos raised, the president’s responses were clear, strong, and unambiguous:  

• I’m not getting out;  
• I don’t believe the polls that repeatedly say I’m very unpopular and well behind my opponent; 
• I will beat Donald Trump, as I have before; and  
• I don’t think anyone else is more qualified to win the race

Stephanopoulos, to his credit, pressed repeatedly for Biden to “reassure the public” by taking a full neurological test. Biden refused but with the evasive skill of a lifelong politician. His answer was that the only neurological test he needed was the hard work he did every day in the Oval Office. 

The problem is that the public already knows he works in that office and is far from reassured. They’ve been told his actual work day is from 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. (Stephanopoulos didn’t ask about that.) They have read reports in reliably left-leaning newspapers and magazines that Biden’s cognitive decline is apparent to insiders and that his mental lapses have become more frequent and more pronounced. 

What made last Thursday’s debate so important was that outsiders finally saw the same thing. According to polls, voters were deeply troubled by what they saw and troubled as they realized they had been repeatedly lied to, not only by the White House staff but by the legacy media. It’s hard to believe the mainstream media could damage its reputation even more, but they managed to limbo under that very low bar. 

After Biden parried the questions about his health, the president rattled off a list of first-term achievements. Stephanopoulos acknowledged those but noted that past achievements didn’t assuage voters’ doubts about Biden’s capacity to handle the job for the next four years. Biden’s response was to say he is still fit for the job and that Trump was a “pathological liar.”  

Whatever you think of Trump, it is not the former president and his party who are urging Biden to leave the race. It is the New York Times, Washington Post, major donors, and even some elected officials. A few Democrats have been willing to say so publicly but the chorus is building behind the scenes. 

In fact, the most significant news Friday was that Senator Mark Warner of Virginia, one of the most respected Democrats on the Hill, was organizing a group of fellow senators to meet privately with Biden and tell him to leave the race. Stephanopoulos asked about that, and Biden’s response was the same as the one he gave to the Wisconsin rally earlier than day: I’m not leaving. 

Where the interview failed was on public policy. Stephanopoulos asked no questions about the top issues on voters’ minds, primarily inflation, immigration and crime, or the Democrats’ lead issue of reproductive rights. 

There isn’t time to ask everything in a twenty-two-minute interview, but the omission was significant. Voters not only think Biden is too old and infirm; they think he is doing a poor job on their top issues. His 36 percent approval rating is the lowest since modern polling was developed. 

Low as those numbers are, Biden may be right that no other Democrat is in a better position to win. His party and his enablers waited too late to replace him with an open primary. Now, they face the Gordian knot of a vice president who is even less popular than Biden but cannot be displaced without enormous damage to the party’s long-standing support from African Americans, especially black women. And they face a president who has enough delegate votes to secure the nomination and seems determined to stay in the race. If he did leave and the convention were an open battle that replaced Kamala Harris, it’s hard to see how the party wouldn’t be crushed in November. 

Democratic senators and representatives are home this week, listening to constituents and reading the polls. And they are coming to a dreadful conclusion. When it comes to keeping Biden or replacing him, they are damned if can, damned if they do, and damned if they don’t.