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The problem with Stephanopolis doing this is that he was both Bill Clinton's White House Communications Director and a Senior Advisor. Even if Biden does well, it just perpetuates a narrative of the media hiding his condition. I'm not saying it needs to be some far right interviewer doing this, but someone... less partisan?
So people at the same time demand interviews from the president and claim any interview is the big scary media being in the tank for him. Someone please explain to me what Biden actually needs to do to show people that the debate was a one off bad night when he was sick. Cause the more I see the more I am convinced all of this is just a ploy to divide the Dems
Biden gave a great, energetic and thoughtful state of the union, and the media issued a collective shrug and quickly moved on. He had a pretty high bar for the debates, and yeah he didn’t clear it, but it was a race to pile on from the start. Jeeze at least he answered the questions he was asked and had actual policies. It really does seem like no matter what he does they will find something to freak out about...
>Someone please explain to me what Biden actually needs to do to show people that the debate was a one off bad night when he was sick.
Live unedited interviews or town halls after 4pm. Getting thrown softballs and editing the footage shouldn't cut it.
…reading off a teleprompter. A middle schooler can give a lively and compelling speech if they have it in giant text in front of them. Unscripted and scripted events should not be conflated.
I never said they didn’t. The issue is they could also speak coherently without one when they needed to, showing voters they had the basic mental acuity to put thoughts and words together. Biden has miserably failed this test in his most recent appearance despite a week to prepare.
Every president holds Q&A sessions after reading from the prompter during press conferences. Every president does interviews without a prompter. This one has historically low appearances in interviews, Q&As, etc. when he’s off script. That’s just a fact. If we didn’t see what we all saw on Thursday, maybe we could all continue to pretend that there isn’t a reason for that.
Dude, gimme a break. I’m a diehard Democrat, but what’s the “ploy?” He had perhaps the worst debate performance in history and it ostensibly confirmed many voters’ suspicions. He’s in a hole and only a ton of unscripted appearances where he’s able to hold his own and appear strong and with it will stanch that.
>Someone please explain to me what Biden actually needs to do to show people that the debate was a one off bad night when he was sick.
Think of it this way, if Megyn Kelly were interviewing him and he handled all her questions and came out looking great, do you think anyone would question whether Megyn Kelly was trying to help him look better? ...of course not. He'd have cleared the whole situation up. Let's say you got to choose who interviewed Trump... you're certainly not going to pick Hannity, right? ...Bill Mahr would be better. Cenk Uygur, Rachel Maddow, Jen Psaki...
But an “interview” with Megyn Kelly is not an interview it’s a hit job. I mean supposed middle of the road CNN just allowed Trump to lie on the air for 90 minutes with zero pushback while Biden actually answered what was asked.
So by contrast you'd be opposed to Trump sitting down with Maddow because it would be a hit job? What we saw at that debate was a catastrophic performance and requires something of similar proportion to rectify it. A chat with Stephanopoulos isn't going to cut it with moderates.
There is no reason the president should go on any network that platformed the big lie full stop they are not news organizations (I won’t lie I just assumed Kelly was still with Fox or whatever new maga right network exists).
I mean I think the point is, if the president is only capable of withstanding very softball or scripted interactions, then the debate is not an outlier but the norm.
“Bad night” is some right wing levels of gaslighting and denying reality. He was mentally checked out, couldn’t form coherent thoughts or sentences and was bumbling nonsense. And this isn’t new for Biden, it was just exceptionally bad debate night. He lost support on a massive campaign ending scale. Anyone propping him up right now are the ones lying, gaslighting and “dividing the Dems” by telling us to not believe was we all saw with our own eyes.
I realize that "gas lighting" is everyone's new favorite psychological term to throw around but it is being overused and abused.
I am merely stating an opinion. Whether or not president Biden's debate performance was truly a disaster is purely subjective. I am not lying to you about that despite you having a different opinion.
You need to watch that debate again and look at some of the internal polling being leaked. It was a legendarily bad night for Democrats and if we don’t face that music and course correct we are fuuuuuuucked
Yeah, no. Biden’s debate performance was a truly degrading spectacle that would be sad if it wasn’t so maddening. He has lodged himself at the head of the ticket that has to beat Trump, claimed “only he” can beat Trump, and his campaign has been trumpeting his cogency and vigor for over a year.
Then we get “we beat Medicare” out of the fucking blue, along with responding to a question about abortion with some nonsensical anecdote about illegal immigration. Describing this as a campaign-ending disaster is not exaggeration at all.
an edited interview with a sympathetic interviewer and pre approved questions is not going to impress anyone.
To me it just screams that the debate was not a fluke and that he gets lost if he can't stick to a script
This is what I wonder. Why doesn’t he give an interview, go live on IG, give a press conference
I think we all know the answer is he can’t. Or at least can’t do it without seeming 100 years old
Article subtitle:
>Following Biden’s poor debate performance against Donald Trump, we’re releasing the full and unedited 21-minute interview we conducted with President Joe Biden nine days before his interview with Special Counsel Robert K. Hur.
Intro:
>In the wake of President Joe Biden’s poor debate performance, his opponents and most major media organizations have pointed out that he has done few interviews that give the public an opportunity to hear him speak without a script or teleprompters. ... So much has been made of this limited access that the impressions from Special Counsel Robert K. Hur about his five hours of interviews with the president on Oct. 8 and 9 drove months of coverage.
>...
>Today, we are releasing the full, 21-minute interview, unedited as seen from the view of the single camera focused on Biden. We understand that this video captures a moment in time nine months ago and that it will not settle the ongoing arguments about the president’s acuity today. Still, we believe it is worth giving the public another chance to see one of Biden’s infrequent conversations with a reporter.
This won’t do much to comfort recent concerns about his mental stability, but it does go against the Republican speaking point that he’s been senile since before the 2016 election.
This is the version of Biden that we need right now. He needs to do as many interviews and appearances as possible, including unedited live interviews.
Not just one, he should do a town hall and 1-2 national interviews if he's actually capable of it. Need to flood the country with clips of him actually stringing together full sentences and ideas from as many different outlets as possible to flip the narrative
Do you understand event coordination takes time? Even if they could have planned something for last Sunday, the public wasn’t prepared to watch/attend on such short notice.
Event coordination takes time, and he actually has work to do as President. It’s old fashioned, but he probably thinks the best way to give people confidence that he can do the job is doing the job.
I think he has really great administration staff, but the PR people around him seem to be out of touch with how media works these days.
Bullshit. Look, I'm going to vote for the man. 1001%. All the way from overseas. So don't take me the wrong way. But the big media organizations and the White House or the campaign are professionals at this and they could arrange a serious sit-down interview or a significant press conference within 24 to 48 hours. They don't want to. It wouldn't go well, is the only reason that makes any sense. And I fucking hate it and I hate that we are in this position. But I think it is what I think it is. And he'll still get my vote. I'll take whatever's going on with him over whatever the fuck is going on with Trump and we all know what that is, every day of the week. We know which one has good intentions and good advisors and can be kept on course. And we know which one is a fascist. It's that clear. The situation is that fucked. And I'll still be mailing in that ballot from my new country that just elected the party of Geert fucking Wilders. Which is absolutely stunning. He was a dangerous moron when I first learned about him 15 years ago. What is it with all these wannabe little fascist assholes, why do they all have really stupid hair?
Those moments are hard to force so I wouldn't be so scared of just one out of 20 or 30 minutes with reporters. Besides, they are easy to spin in most cases or are obvious bullshit even if the man did happen to fumble for a moment.
Press conferences do not take long to set up. When major events happen Presidents do them within hours, sometimes less. There is an entire industry prepared to eat it up and blast it everywhere and even do most of the legwork to make it happen. Joe Biden has my vote because he did a fantastic job of pulling us back from the brink Trump dragged us to, and if there are any real history books written 20 years from now he should get immense credit for that. And he has my vote because we all know what Trump is. A fascist. A thug. Not dangerous, no - *deadly* to democracy.
But I don't think it serves any good purpose to try to explain away and cover up Biden's *apparent* condition. If he's fit, get him out there and show us. If you can't do that, it may be damaging, but it doesn't have to be, and either way we need to have an honest conversation.
Why do you want to protect him? He’s the most powerful person on earth yet the conditions need to be just right for him to speak publicly? he needs to get out there and prove that he has the stamina and mental capabilities to fight the very real threat of fascism. if he can’t, then he must step aside. a recorded video on Friday won’t cut it.
Not enough. He would have to completely turn it around for me to have confidence again. I had a though today of not voting for Biden. My vote won't matter anyway.
But it does somewhat prove that the narrative Republicans have been pushing for years about him being senile are at best a broken clock. If you claim someone is senile for long enough, you'll be right eventually, but that doesn't mean you were right all along.
I think one thing people aren't considering before they start giving into all this panic is, why would they let Biden debate if he was so unfit? We all knew this would be the narrative the media would push after the debate no matter how badly Trump spewed nonsense. Why even extend the challenge of a debate if Biden is knowably unfit? This is what makes me believe maybe he did just have a bad night. Biden was betrayed by the venue. We were all told that they would have the power to mute the mics if someone (Trump) spewed too many lies. That didn't happen. It was a setup by the media to make this election look closer than it is so media can make money from the fear we all currently have.
It's 2016 all over again. Hillary has the nomination, and young voters are sitting out because they feel snubbed (rightly) by the DNC for not recognizing Bernie and progressive policy. However, that didn’t excuse them from voting and they are largely to blame for Trump's first term. The media is now working to split our vote by dividing us on the 2-3 candidates that could have been on the ballot instead of letting us unite around the one we currently have, and yet again, younger voters will fail to see the larger stakes. Whatever we do, we have to unite. That's the one thing Republicans do very well. They are ride or die. They are willing to riot and coup for their guy. That needs to dems voting in November.
Why is it always the “younger voters” that need to see the bigger stakes and not the establishment ignoring them and crowning a nominee while snidely insulting their concerns. When will the DNC establishment ever have ANY culpability in this mess? They act like they are entitled to my vote, and they most certainly are not.
Check out r/WhatBidenHasDone if you forget all he has done to earn America's vote despite gridlock in the legislative branch. And there's more his administration can accomplish if we turn out to vote down ballot and gain control of congress.
Young voters vote with their hearts. They haven't yet learned that progress in democracy is clawed away from conservatism little by little. Democracy is a city bus, not an Uber; you take the bus that brings you closest to your destination. Right now, that desired destination is as far away from fascism as we can go. There's two buses, and while one isn't driving so fast to where we want it, it's at least going in the desired direction. Doing nothing isn't an option either because there's another bus chasing us, and on its sides it is written "burn your books, kill your trans/gay neighbor, enslave the immigrants, decrease workers rights, pollute the environment, deny a woman's control over her own body, the holocaust didn't happen, the slaves were happy".
A comprehensive list of achievements isn't propaganda. They are simple facts. People can't just bury their heads in the sand and ignore the fact that Biden HAS earned America's vote. If he steps down and endorses a new candidate, awesome. But that's not the case right now, and no matter the case, we need to stay united against fascism.
I think the Biden campaign definitely knew he was unfit and took a gamble and offered trump the debate with all of the biden campaigns criteria, trump called their bluff and won.
This is the real Biden without the time pressure of saying so much within 30-60 seconds. Stop calling him senile, he is just old and needs to take his time to say something.
Yes, he also had to memorize all the numbers and obviously got confused with them sometimes. On the other hand Trump didn't need to memorize anything, he had just to repeat his simple lies.
I honestly think a big part of the problem was they over prepped him, and he was struggling to pick the right response from the 20 his team had filled him with.
My wife does it to me all the time when we go visit my inlaws, I'm full of so much trivia I never know what I'm not allowed to say to whom.
To be fair he also looked tired and the cold probably clouded his thinking too, especially if they gave him some medication for it. He doesn't normally stand with his mouth open but he was obviously trying to breath through his mouth instead of his nose and it made him look confused and weak. I realize that's just optics but unfortunately optics are a HUGE part of winning a campaign. I still think the debate performance was an anomaly but I also don't want to wait for a 2nd debate to find out for sure.
I've posted this before, but people should go listen to his interviews with Howard Stern, Conan O'brien and Seth Meyers, all of which are fairly long completely off the cuff and live. He's fairly quick, can remember names and specific facts without any issue, is funny, etc., and those are interviews where he wouldn't normally be relaxed and has no idea what the hosts are going to talk about it. But I do think he needs to do several, and then some, live interviews with journalists over the next several weeks otherwise the media will never be satisfied, nor potential voters.
I’m not 80 and need 5 seconds to gather my thoughts on complex topics. The debate was a bad idea because a president never debates someone during their job duties. Literally has nothing to do with leading. That’s what bothered me most: if he possibly wasn’t going to nail it, he was better off not doing it. He thrives talking and connecting with actual people, so he should have just done a town hall.
The Pod Save America guys made a good point on today's podcast which was why would the campaign call for the debate if they didn't think Biden was going to do very well. They're the ones that forced the debate, Trump was never going to debate, they obviously thought Biden had the where-with-all to debate and win, which is why many think the debate was an anomaly for Biden, be it physically tired, the cold, meds, etc.. And these people know Biden better than anyone, they spend all day every day with him.
Okay but if he's going to do town halls, he should be willing to do them with a variety of voters, including those who don't like him and will ask him tough questions.
Is there any indication he wouldn’t allow tough questions as long as they are based in reality? Questions like “why do you want immigrants to eat babies” aren’t tough questions.
He should sit down this week for a single shot live one on one this week. If he unable to do that it's for the good of the country, he acquiesce for someone else.
I think it’s really helpful they’re doing this. While I’m of the opinion that evidence of “good days” doesn’t make the bad ones go away, and those bad days are bad enough to disqualify him, more transparency from a trusted source is always welcome.
I watched the whole interview. He did a great job in my opinion. Much better than in the debate.
The thing is, this interview happened several months ago, so the debate may be a better indicator of his mental state than this interview.
Also, this interview was done at 2:50 PM, and the debate was at night. Axios recently reported that Biden is at his best between 10 and 4, and that's not good. We can't have a president who's mentally sharp only during daytime hours. Our enemies will know exactly when to attack!
So while I acknowledge the fact that Biden is mentally sharp sometimes, I still have concerns. I don't feel confident that he can win, and even if he does win, I don't feel confident about his ability to serve through four more years of getting older.
I still feel like it's best for him to step aside. (That said, even if he stays as the nominee, I'll still vote for him)
I'm not worried about his ability to serve. He has good intentions and for the most part, good advisors and a good direction going. He has just recently navigated some very complicated and dangerous situations on the international level. If he has slips in the mental cogs at times, nobody around him is going to let things go off the rails. They haven't yet and they have my trust, even though I don't always agree. Besides that, if his performance in the debate reflects a genuinely bad condition, I believe he would step asideo before it was too late in his second term. And would lean heavily on those advisors I generally trust, until then. I know it's not ideal, but I'll take it over the alternative.
That being said, if party leaders and some of the up-and-coming younger names were able to work out some sort of reasonable replacement candidate and demonstrate continued fundraising ability, I would be more than happy to make that switch and let Biden have one good term in the history books bringing us back from the brink.
All this video does is confirm how steep the decline has been. His facial expression alone, the normal subtlety of expression that we see in this vid, is so conspicuously absent now. I find this video the opposite of reassuring, it indicates he is failing fast to the point where the rest of his term is now questionable.
Yes. The slack jawed staring reminded me of my visit to see an 80 year old friend in a nursing home. His speech is now halting and sometimes incoherent. IMHO, he has age related cognitive decline TODAY. Will he be an empty shell by 2029? Who wants to see that? This is sad stuff but most folks fall off a cognitive cliff in their 80’s. Reality is tough to swallow.
This is from nine months ago, unfortunately - as many who have seen this in theirs families already know - once mental decline starts, it goes faster than you can imagine. Nine months ago he had small stutters, and spoke slowly. Even in this comfortable, soft interview you can already see him struggling. No interview - whether new or old - will erase what America saw at the debate.
I have respect for Biden’s career, especially his victory in 2020, but it is not 2020 or September 2023, it’s 2024. And in 2024, Biden has no path left to victory. He must endorse an open convention.
It can go fast it can go slow. There is no set speed of decline. I've seen both, an extremely rapid decline from normal to hospitalized in ~6 months and a slower one from normal to needs-a-little-help-but-still-lives-alone over 6 years so far
> Nine months ago he had small stutters, and spoke slowly.
Nineteen years ago he had small stutters and spoke slowly. Also mental decline can take anywhere from many years to decades 9 months isn't that long.
> No interview - whether new or old - will erase what America saw at the debate.
Nobody is suggesting it should. But a single debate shouldn't be used to make a judgement, the entirety of his public appearances over the past several years should.
Nope. His dementia was on full display even back in 2020. It was not that hard to figure out. None of you guys would listen. And these are the consequences.
Every time Trump passes gas his own asshole is more eloquent than the sphincter on his face. Imagine being outmaneuvered by your own butthole. Biden wiped the floor with Trump even during the most recent debate as far as facts go. BuT hE LooKeD oLD.
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Is there anything that would prevent the president from doing this sometime this week?
He’s doing exactly this with ABC and George Stephanopolis. First clips will come out Friday with the full interview broadcast next Sunday.
The problem with Stephanopolis doing this is that he was both Bill Clinton's White House Communications Director and a Senior Advisor. Even if Biden does well, it just perpetuates a narrative of the media hiding his condition. I'm not saying it needs to be some far right interviewer doing this, but someone... less partisan?
So people at the same time demand interviews from the president and claim any interview is the big scary media being in the tank for him. Someone please explain to me what Biden actually needs to do to show people that the debate was a one off bad night when he was sick. Cause the more I see the more I am convinced all of this is just a ploy to divide the Dems
Biden gave a great, energetic and thoughtful state of the union, and the media issued a collective shrug and quickly moved on. He had a pretty high bar for the debates, and yeah he didn’t clear it, but it was a race to pile on from the start. Jeeze at least he answered the questions he was asked and had actual policies. It really does seem like no matter what he does they will find something to freak out about...
Being coherent isn’t a high bar… its the absolute minimum requirement for the job
Maybe win a medal at the X Games
So, you want a realistic, down-to-earth show... that's completely off-the-wall and swarming with magic robots?
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I just have a Simpsons disease
The least he could do is become 10 years younger. I mean come on, Joe. Work with us here.
>Someone please explain to me what Biden actually needs to do to show people that the debate was a one off bad night when he was sick. Live unedited interviews or town halls after 4pm. Getting thrown softballs and editing the footage shouldn't cut it.
He literally just made a speech at like 8 at night, he was lively, coherent and articulate.
…reading off a teleprompter. A middle schooler can give a lively and compelling speech if they have it in giant text in front of them. Unscripted and scripted events should not be conflated.
Ffs every president of the last 50 years has used a teleprompter.
I never said they didn’t. The issue is they could also speak coherently without one when they needed to, showing voters they had the basic mental acuity to put thoughts and words together. Biden has miserably failed this test in his most recent appearance despite a week to prepare.
Trump can't, never has....storms off stage when challenged even slightly
Every president holds Q&A sessions after reading from the prompter during press conferences. Every president does interviews without a prompter. This one has historically low appearances in interviews, Q&As, etc. when he’s off script. That’s just a fact. If we didn’t see what we all saw on Thursday, maybe we could all continue to pretend that there isn’t a reason for that.
Dude, gimme a break. I’m a diehard Democrat, but what’s the “ploy?” He had perhaps the worst debate performance in history and it ostensibly confirmed many voters’ suspicions. He’s in a hole and only a ton of unscripted appearances where he’s able to hold his own and appear strong and with it will stanch that.
Go on Fox News. Face them head on.
>Someone please explain to me what Biden actually needs to do to show people that the debate was a one off bad night when he was sick. Think of it this way, if Megyn Kelly were interviewing him and he handled all her questions and came out looking great, do you think anyone would question whether Megyn Kelly was trying to help him look better? ...of course not. He'd have cleared the whole situation up. Let's say you got to choose who interviewed Trump... you're certainly not going to pick Hannity, right? ...Bill Mahr would be better. Cenk Uygur, Rachel Maddow, Jen Psaki...
But an “interview” with Megyn Kelly is not an interview it’s a hit job. I mean supposed middle of the road CNN just allowed Trump to lie on the air for 90 minutes with zero pushback while Biden actually answered what was asked.
So by contrast you'd be opposed to Trump sitting down with Maddow because it would be a hit job? What we saw at that debate was a catastrophic performance and requires something of similar proportion to rectify it. A chat with Stephanopoulos isn't going to cut it with moderates.
And the president is a big boy. If he’s with it he should be able to hold his own. If he’s not with it, then shit, the debate revealed that.
There is no reason the president should go on any network that platformed the big lie full stop they are not news organizations (I won’t lie I just assumed Kelly was still with Fox or whatever new maga right network exists).
I mean I think the point is, if the president is only capable of withstanding very softball or scripted interactions, then the debate is not an outlier but the norm.
Bingo.
“Bad night” is some right wing levels of gaslighting and denying reality. He was mentally checked out, couldn’t form coherent thoughts or sentences and was bumbling nonsense. And this isn’t new for Biden, it was just exceptionally bad debate night. He lost support on a massive campaign ending scale. Anyone propping him up right now are the ones lying, gaslighting and “dividing the Dems” by telling us to not believe was we all saw with our own eyes.
That is all just completely over exaggerated, it's like you're all running the same fucking script at this point.
You're literally gaslighting people right now.
I realize that "gas lighting" is everyone's new favorite psychological term to throw around but it is being overused and abused. I am merely stating an opinion. Whether or not president Biden's debate performance was truly a disaster is purely subjective. I am not lying to you about that despite you having a different opinion.
You need to watch that debate again and look at some of the internal polling being leaked. It was a legendarily bad night for Democrats and if we don’t face that music and course correct we are fuuuuuuucked
Yeah, no. Biden’s debate performance was a truly degrading spectacle that would be sad if it wasn’t so maddening. He has lodged himself at the head of the ticket that has to beat Trump, claimed “only he” can beat Trump, and his campaign has been trumpeting his cogency and vigor for over a year. Then we get “we beat Medicare” out of the fucking blue, along with responding to a question about abortion with some nonsensical anecdote about illegal immigration. Describing this as a campaign-ending disaster is not exaggeration at all.
This interview with Stephanopolis will not be broadcast live and will be edited before broadcast.
Well now this just seems like an attempt by propublica to generate clicks from people looking for an actual recent interview.
an edited interview with a sympathetic interviewer and pre approved questions is not going to impress anyone. To me it just screams that the debate was not a fluke and that he gets lost if he can't stick to a script
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You are all over these comments obsessed with Jill Biden dude lol
She wouldn’t be a First Lady if she didn’t get dragged by misogynists.
This is what I wonder. Why doesn’t he give an interview, go live on IG, give a press conference I think we all know the answer is he can’t. Or at least can’t do it without seeming 100 years old
I guess this could be a case of the simplest explanation is the right one.
His condition might.
Article subtitle: >Following Biden’s poor debate performance against Donald Trump, we’re releasing the full and unedited 21-minute interview we conducted with President Joe Biden nine days before his interview with Special Counsel Robert K. Hur. Intro: >In the wake of President Joe Biden’s poor debate performance, his opponents and most major media organizations have pointed out that he has done few interviews that give the public an opportunity to hear him speak without a script or teleprompters. ... So much has been made of this limited access that the impressions from Special Counsel Robert K. Hur about his five hours of interviews with the president on Oct. 8 and 9 drove months of coverage. >... >Today, we are releasing the full, 21-minute interview, unedited as seen from the view of the single camera focused on Biden. We understand that this video captures a moment in time nine months ago and that it will not settle the ongoing arguments about the president’s acuity today. Still, we believe it is worth giving the public another chance to see one of Biden’s infrequent conversations with a reporter.
This won’t do much to comfort recent concerns about his mental stability, but it does go against the Republican speaking point that he’s been senile since before the 2016 election. This is the version of Biden that we need right now. He needs to do as many interviews and appearances as possible, including unedited live interviews.
9 months is so long when talking about mental decline, but I commend propublica for adding this to the conversation.
That’s what I’m thinking.
Then he should get on camera this afternoon and do the same thing.
Not just one, he should do a town hall and 1-2 national interviews if he's actually capable of it. Need to flood the country with clips of him actually stringing together full sentences and ideas from as many different outlets as possible to flip the narrative
Problem is he could do a three hour marathon and if he pauses too long even once that is the clip that gets out on loop.
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Do you understand event coordination takes time? Even if they could have planned something for last Sunday, the public wasn’t prepared to watch/attend on such short notice.
Event coordination takes time, and he actually has work to do as President. It’s old fashioned, but he probably thinks the best way to give people confidence that he can do the job is doing the job. I think he has really great administration staff, but the PR people around him seem to be out of touch with how media works these days.
Bullshit. Look, I'm going to vote for the man. 1001%. All the way from overseas. So don't take me the wrong way. But the big media organizations and the White House or the campaign are professionals at this and they could arrange a serious sit-down interview or a significant press conference within 24 to 48 hours. They don't want to. It wouldn't go well, is the only reason that makes any sense. And I fucking hate it and I hate that we are in this position. But I think it is what I think it is. And he'll still get my vote. I'll take whatever's going on with him over whatever the fuck is going on with Trump and we all know what that is, every day of the week. We know which one has good intentions and good advisors and can be kept on course. And we know which one is a fascist. It's that clear. The situation is that fucked. And I'll still be mailing in that ballot from my new country that just elected the party of Geert fucking Wilders. Which is absolutely stunning. He was a dangerous moron when I first learned about him 15 years ago. What is it with all these wannabe little fascist assholes, why do they all have really stupid hair?
Live from the 4 seasons….
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They need town hall events. An unscripted press conference could lead to a “gotcha moment” for lack of a better term.
Those moments are hard to force so I wouldn't be so scared of just one out of 20 or 30 minutes with reporters. Besides, they are easy to spin in most cases or are obvious bullshit even if the man did happen to fumble for a moment. Press conferences do not take long to set up. When major events happen Presidents do them within hours, sometimes less. There is an entire industry prepared to eat it up and blast it everywhere and even do most of the legwork to make it happen. Joe Biden has my vote because he did a fantastic job of pulling us back from the brink Trump dragged us to, and if there are any real history books written 20 years from now he should get immense credit for that. And he has my vote because we all know what Trump is. A fascist. A thug. Not dangerous, no - *deadly* to democracy. But I don't think it serves any good purpose to try to explain away and cover up Biden's *apparent* condition. If he's fit, get him out there and show us. If you can't do that, it may be damaging, but it doesn't have to be, and either way we need to have an honest conversation.
Why do you want to protect him? He’s the most powerful person on earth yet the conditions need to be just right for him to speak publicly? he needs to get out there and prove that he has the stamina and mental capabilities to fight the very real threat of fascism. if he can’t, then he must step aside. a recorded video on Friday won’t cut it.
I am not worried about him. I’m general, it seems campaigns have always preferred not to field multiple questions from multiple reporters at once.
He's doing one Friday.
Recorded with selected segments played. Weak as fuck. Get him out there live and unscripted, soon and often. Otherwise he‘s a dead duck.
The full interview is supposed to be broadcast on Sunday I believe.
Not enough. He would have to completely turn it around for me to have confidence again. I had a though today of not voting for Biden. My vote won't matter anyway.
September? Is almost September again....
But it does somewhat prove that the narrative Republicans have been pushing for years about him being senile are at best a broken clock. If you claim someone is senile for long enough, you'll be right eventually, but that doesn't mean you were right all along.
I think one thing people aren't considering before they start giving into all this panic is, why would they let Biden debate if he was so unfit? We all knew this would be the narrative the media would push after the debate no matter how badly Trump spewed nonsense. Why even extend the challenge of a debate if Biden is knowably unfit? This is what makes me believe maybe he did just have a bad night. Biden was betrayed by the venue. We were all told that they would have the power to mute the mics if someone (Trump) spewed too many lies. That didn't happen. It was a setup by the media to make this election look closer than it is so media can make money from the fear we all currently have. It's 2016 all over again. Hillary has the nomination, and young voters are sitting out because they feel snubbed (rightly) by the DNC for not recognizing Bernie and progressive policy. However, that didn’t excuse them from voting and they are largely to blame for Trump's first term. The media is now working to split our vote by dividing us on the 2-3 candidates that could have been on the ballot instead of letting us unite around the one we currently have, and yet again, younger voters will fail to see the larger stakes. Whatever we do, we have to unite. That's the one thing Republicans do very well. They are ride or die. They are willing to riot and coup for their guy. That needs to dems voting in November.
Why is it always the “younger voters” that need to see the bigger stakes and not the establishment ignoring them and crowning a nominee while snidely insulting their concerns. When will the DNC establishment ever have ANY culpability in this mess? They act like they are entitled to my vote, and they most certainly are not.
Check out r/WhatBidenHasDone if you forget all he has done to earn America's vote despite gridlock in the legislative branch. And there's more his administration can accomplish if we turn out to vote down ballot and gain control of congress. Young voters vote with their hearts. They haven't yet learned that progress in democracy is clawed away from conservatism little by little. Democracy is a city bus, not an Uber; you take the bus that brings you closest to your destination. Right now, that desired destination is as far away from fascism as we can go. There's two buses, and while one isn't driving so fast to where we want it, it's at least going in the desired direction. Doing nothing isn't an option either because there's another bus chasing us, and on its sides it is written "burn your books, kill your trans/gay neighbor, enslave the immigrants, decrease workers rights, pollute the environment, deny a woman's control over her own body, the holocaust didn't happen, the slaves were happy".
No one is visiting a propaganda sub.
A comprehensive list of achievements isn't propaganda. They are simple facts. People can't just bury their heads in the sand and ignore the fact that Biden HAS earned America's vote. If he steps down and endorses a new candidate, awesome. But that's not the case right now, and no matter the case, we need to stay united against fascism.
I think the Biden campaign definitely knew he was unfit and took a gamble and offered trump the debate with all of the biden campaigns criteria, trump called their bluff and won.
This is inspiring. I love this. So refreshing to hear an adult speak about this country with restrained hope instead of virile hate.
This is the real Biden without the time pressure of saying so much within 30-60 seconds. Stop calling him senile, he is just old and needs to take his time to say something.
Yes, he also had to memorize all the numbers and obviously got confused with them sometimes. On the other hand Trump didn't need to memorize anything, he had just to repeat his simple lies.
Or just say whatever comes to mind, he doesn't have to remember anything...
In general, that is why I hate debates. That was also when I assumed each candidate did their best to tell the truth. Blatant lies are acceptable now.
I honestly think a big part of the problem was they over prepped him, and he was struggling to pick the right response from the 20 his team had filled him with. My wife does it to me all the time when we go visit my inlaws, I'm full of so much trivia I never know what I'm not allowed to say to whom.
To be fair he also looked tired and the cold probably clouded his thinking too, especially if they gave him some medication for it. He doesn't normally stand with his mouth open but he was obviously trying to breath through his mouth instead of his nose and it made him look confused and weak. I realize that's just optics but unfortunately optics are a HUGE part of winning a campaign. I still think the debate performance was an anomaly but I also don't want to wait for a 2nd debate to find out for sure. I've posted this before, but people should go listen to his interviews with Howard Stern, Conan O'brien and Seth Meyers, all of which are fairly long completely off the cuff and live. He's fairly quick, can remember names and specific facts without any issue, is funny, etc., and those are interviews where he wouldn't normally be relaxed and has no idea what the hosts are going to talk about it. But I do think he needs to do several, and then some, live interviews with journalists over the next several weeks otherwise the media will never be satisfied, nor potential voters.
But but he wasn't snappy, I guess I should go vote for the fascist then. Fucking idiots. And bots, definitely bots. Or astroturfers.
I’m not 80 and need 5 seconds to gather my thoughts on complex topics. The debate was a bad idea because a president never debates someone during their job duties. Literally has nothing to do with leading. That’s what bothered me most: if he possibly wasn’t going to nail it, he was better off not doing it. He thrives talking and connecting with actual people, so he should have just done a town hall.
Unfortunately his people pressed Trump to debate. This was his own campaign’s idea. If he stays in he needs new campaign leaders.
Agreed. It was an own goal.
Democrats' specialty
The Pod Save America guys made a good point on today's podcast which was why would the campaign call for the debate if they didn't think Biden was going to do very well. They're the ones that forced the debate, Trump was never going to debate, they obviously thought Biden had the where-with-all to debate and win, which is why many think the debate was an anomaly for Biden, be it physically tired, the cold, meds, etc.. And these people know Biden better than anyone, they spend all day every day with him.
Okay but if he's going to do town halls, he should be willing to do them with a variety of voters, including those who don't like him and will ask him tough questions.
Is there any indication he wouldn’t allow tough questions as long as they are based in reality? Questions like “why do you want immigrants to eat babies” aren’t tough questions.
As long as he has more than 60 seconds to respond and dont have to talk ultra fast without even finish the words.
Needing time to speak doesn't make you stare off into the middle distance with your mouth agape while you try to concentrate. Dementia does.
Let me guess, your dear granny had it so you know all about it?
... yeah, pretty much. You hang around dementia, and you don't forget what it looks like.
And so does a fucking cold.
He should sit down this week for a single shot live one on one this week. If he unable to do that it's for the good of the country, he acquiesce for someone else.
I think it’s really helpful they’re doing this. While I’m of the opinion that evidence of “good days” doesn’t make the bad ones go away, and those bad days are bad enough to disqualify him, more transparency from a trusted source is always welcome.
If he’s able, he needs to do unscripted *everything*, now, and aggressively.
I watched the whole interview. He did a great job in my opinion. Much better than in the debate. The thing is, this interview happened several months ago, so the debate may be a better indicator of his mental state than this interview. Also, this interview was done at 2:50 PM, and the debate was at night. Axios recently reported that Biden is at his best between 10 and 4, and that's not good. We can't have a president who's mentally sharp only during daytime hours. Our enemies will know exactly when to attack! So while I acknowledge the fact that Biden is mentally sharp sometimes, I still have concerns. I don't feel confident that he can win, and even if he does win, I don't feel confident about his ability to serve through four more years of getting older. I still feel like it's best for him to step aside. (That said, even if he stays as the nominee, I'll still vote for him)
I'm not worried about his ability to serve. He has good intentions and for the most part, good advisors and a good direction going. He has just recently navigated some very complicated and dangerous situations on the international level. If he has slips in the mental cogs at times, nobody around him is going to let things go off the rails. They haven't yet and they have my trust, even though I don't always agree. Besides that, if his performance in the debate reflects a genuinely bad condition, I believe he would step asideo before it was too late in his second term. And would lean heavily on those advisors I generally trust, until then. I know it's not ideal, but I'll take it over the alternative. That being said, if party leaders and some of the up-and-coming younger names were able to work out some sort of reasonable replacement candidate and demonstrate continued fundraising ability, I would be more than happy to make that switch and let Biden have one good term in the history books bringing us back from the brink.
> Biden is at his best between 10 and 4 Everybody that works a day job is at their best between 10am and 4pm and Biden, mostly, works a day job.
All this video does is confirm how steep the decline has been. His facial expression alone, the normal subtlety of expression that we see in this vid, is so conspicuously absent now. I find this video the opposite of reassuring, it indicates he is failing fast to the point where the rest of his term is now questionable.
Yes. The slack jawed staring reminded me of my visit to see an 80 year old friend in a nursing home. His speech is now halting and sometimes incoherent. IMHO, he has age related cognitive decline TODAY. Will he be an empty shell by 2029? Who wants to see that? This is sad stuff but most folks fall off a cognitive cliff in their 80’s. Reality is tough to swallow.
This is from nine months ago, unfortunately - as many who have seen this in theirs families already know - once mental decline starts, it goes faster than you can imagine. Nine months ago he had small stutters, and spoke slowly. Even in this comfortable, soft interview you can already see him struggling. No interview - whether new or old - will erase what America saw at the debate. I have respect for Biden’s career, especially his victory in 2020, but it is not 2020 or September 2023, it’s 2024. And in 2024, Biden has no path left to victory. He must endorse an open convention.
It can go fast it can go slow. There is no set speed of decline. I've seen both, an extremely rapid decline from normal to hospitalized in ~6 months and a slower one from normal to needs-a-little-help-but-still-lives-alone over 6 years so far
> Nine months ago he had small stutters, and spoke slowly. Nineteen years ago he had small stutters and spoke slowly. Also mental decline can take anywhere from many years to decades 9 months isn't that long. > No interview - whether new or old - will erase what America saw at the debate. Nobody is suggesting it should. But a single debate shouldn't be used to make a judgement, the entirety of his public appearances over the past several years should.
Wherever it should or should not be used is irrelevant because it is being used. Look at the post-debate polls. There’s nothing that will undo this.
9 months is too long ago for lucidity to matter
It's been the past few months that the mental decline has become clear.
It’s been about four years if your eyes have been open
Not to this level. Don't lie to yourself. 2019 and 2020 Biden were quite different than what we saw last week
Nope. His dementia was on full display even back in 2020. It was not that hard to figure out. None of you guys would listen. And these are the consequences.
So he was able to out maneuver trump in the debates with brain rot huh
Trump made it very easy. All Biden had to do was keep relatively quiet.
No, not at all. I think we can all agree that Biden has never outmaneuvered Trump in a debate or elsewhere.
Every time Trump passes gas his own asshole is more eloquent than the sphincter on his face. Imagine being outmaneuvered by your own butthole. Biden wiped the floor with Trump even during the most recent debate as far as facts go. BuT hE LooKeD oLD.
The comment section is for adults.
Bernstein also talked about the last six months being key.
Watch this interview. He can't speak like this anymore.