President Joe Biden, facing increasing pressure to leave the 2024 race, seemingly joked at a campaign event Tuesday that he had been so weary from his June travel schedule that he “almost fell asleep” on the debate stage.
“I wasn’t very smart,” he said at the fundraiser in Northern Virginia, adding: “I decided to travel around the world a couple of times ... shortly before the debate. ... I didn’t listen to my staff … and then I almost fell asleep onstage.”
Biden said it was “not an excuse but an explanation.”
NBC News reported that it wasn’t clear how much the president was joking about nearly falling asleep.
The president did, in fact, have an intense itinerary in the weeks leading up to the debate: He flew to France and Italy on two separate trips to meet with foreign leaders, and from Italy he flew to California for a fundraiser before returning to Washington. Then he dove into debate preparations at Camp David.
But the explanation for his hapless showing at the debate and the suggestion that he could have done even worse that night does little to assuage fears that he, at 81, is too old and too infirm to serve four more years as president. What’s more, his remark about nearly falling asleep onstage plays directly into Donald Trump’s “Sleepy Joe” nickname for him.
As the panic within the Democratic Party deepens, Biden’s inner circle is reportedly growing even more defiant and isolated. The New York Times reported that the president has been experiencing increasingly frequent cognitive lapses, echoing The Wall Street Journal’s reporting about Biden’s mental acuity from early June. One Democratic member of Congress has already called for Biden to withdraw from the race. Even as prominent Democrats reiterate their support, not everyone is entirely rejecting the possibility of replacing Biden on the ticket.