Biden says he nearly ‘fell asleep’ at debate, blames foreign travel despite week off to rest
President Biden on Tuesday claimed foreign travel left him so tuckered out that he nearly “fell asleep” during his disastrous debate performance last week — even though he had 13 days to recover from his most recent trip abroad, including a full week at Camp David with afternoon naps.
The 81-year-old commander in chief provided the new excuse as he faces mounting calls from fellow Democrats to step aside and allow a new presidential nominee ahead of the Nov. 5 election.
“I decided to travel around the world a couple of times… shortly before the debate,” Biden told Democratic donors in McLean, Va. “It wasn’t very smart [to be] traveling around the world a couple times.”
“I didn’t listen to my staff… and then I almost fell asleep on stage,” the president added.
President Biden appeared confused throughout CNN’s Thursday debate, prompting Democrats to call for a new candidate. Photo by ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS/AFP via Getty Images
Biden blamed foreign travel despite making just two brief recent foreign trips — traveling on June 5-9 to France to mark the 80th anniversary of D-Day and on June 12-14 to the annual G7 summit in Italy — ahead of the June 27 CNN debate against former President Donald Trump.
The president spent the first full day of his French trip at his hotel without public events.
Biden was at his Rehoboth Beach getaway June 18-20 before traveling to Camp David in western Maryland, where he remained out of public view for the week before the debate.
Debate prep sessions “never started before 11 a.m. and Mr. Biden was given time for an afternoon nap each day,” the New York Times reported Tuesday.
Biden’s catastrophic debate performance — which included a soft, raspy voice and unintelligible phrases such as “we finally beat Medicare” — was initially suggested by aides to be attributable at least in part to a cold.
The New York Post cover for Friday, June 28, 2024.
Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-Texas) on Tuesday became the first sitting member of Congress from Biden’s party to call for him to step aside — writing that Biden should follow the example of President Lyndon B. Johnson, who chose not to seek re-election in 1968.
Another Democrat, Rep. Jared Golden of Maine, wrote in an op-ed for the Bangor Daily News Tuesday that he also had no confidence in Biden.
“Biden’s poor performance in the debate was not a surprise,” Golden wrote. “It also didn’t rattle me as it has others, because the outcome of this election has been clear to me for months: While I don’t plan to vote for him, Donald Trump is going to win. And I’m OK with that.”
Many Democrats are suggesting replacement candidates other than Vice President Kamala Harris — as Biden says he’s not going anywhere. Getty Images
Post-debate internal Democratic polling published Tuesday by Puck News shows that Trump, 78, now leads Biden in states that overwhelmingly supported Biden in 2020, including New Hampshire, New Mexico and Virginia.
A CBS News poll released Monday found that 45% of Democrats want Biden to step aside — a position also advocated Friday by the New York Times editorial board.