President Joe Biden said his performance at the CNN presidential debate in June was a “failure.”
(NewsNation) — President Joe Biden said he “failed” during a debate with former President Donald Trump last week.
“It was a bad night,” the president told Milwaukee radio host Earl Ingram, “and the fact is, I screwed up. I made a mistake.”
He continued, “My father taught me to get up even when you're knocked down,” adding, “I was never a good debater. I was on stage for 90 minutes. Think about what I've done in the last three and a half years.”
The interview was Biden's first time speaking about his widely criticized performance in the debate, in which he stumbled and appeared confused at times as he faced off against Trump, and during which Trump made multiple false statements, with Biden's age becoming a focal point.
Democrats sounded the alarm after the debate, rekindling concerns that Biden may be too old to serve another term, and while the president has tried to bounce back with other public comments, some Democrats have begun openly calling for him to drop out of the race.
Rep. Seth Moulton, a Democrat from Massachusetts, said Democrats should consider “all viable options” for the 2024 elections.
“Raising further bets when the current strategy is not working is hardly the right decision. President Biden is not getting any younger,” the Democrats wrote Wednesday.
Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) suggested after the debate that it was fair for voters to question whether Biden had any symptoms.
“I think it's a legitimate question to ask: Is this a seizure or is this a symptom? So when people ask that question… [it is] Legitimate.”
The White House has been busy refuting claims that Biden is considering dropping out of the race.
A recent report in the New York Times quoted an ally of the president as saying Biden was considering whether to drop out of the 2024 election. The White House has argued that it wasn't given enough time to respond to the story, with spokesman Andrew Bates posting, “This allegation is completely false, and if we had been given more than seven minutes we would have been able to communicate this before it was made public.”
In a fundraising email shared Thursday, the Biden campaign insisted that the 81-year-old president isn't going anywhere.
“I am the Democratic candidate. No one is trying to get rid of me. I am not quitting. I will continue this campaign until the end,” the email read in part.
Biden's latest interview, which aired Thursday morning on WAUK-AM, was recorded the same day that more than two dozen Democratic governors met with him online and at the White House, with a handful pledging their support for the president amid growing concerns about Biden's age.
Maryland Governor Wes Moore, a rising star in the Democratic Party who has been mentioned as a possible candidate to succeed Biden, told reporters after the meeting that the group would continue to support the president.
“The president has always had our backs, and we're going to have his back,” Moore said.
That could complicate things if Democrats push to replace Biden at their August convention: The president faced no significant challenge in the primary and a majority of state delegates have already pledged to support him.
While there is no strict requirement that delegates follow the results of their state's primaries, they are expected to represent the wishes of their voters. If Biden were to drop out, it was unclear what would happen to delegates who had already pledged their votes to him.
The first poll after the debate showed Biden lagging behind Trump, with 44.2% of voters backing Trump and 43.3% backing Biden.
NewsNation’s Steph Whiteside and Kelly Meyer and The Hill contributed to this report.
