Biden had scheduled naps during debate prep after he blames jet lag for disastrous performance

Joe Biden claims his poor performance at last week’s presidential debate was due to being tired after traveling “around the world a couple of times” in the days before the debate.

The 81-year-old said he “almost fell asleep on stage” during his Thursday clash with Donald Trump.

Biden was exhausted from back-to-back trips to Europe, prompting his team to cut his debate preparation sessions by two days to allow him to rest at his Delaware beach house. The preparations lasted for six days, never beginning before 11am and Biden was afforded time for a nap in the afternoon each day, one source told The Times.

It comes as many, including those from his party, have further questioned the president’s cognitive ability and whether he would be up to the role for four more years, should he be re-elected in November.

Biden, speaking at a private fundraiser in McLean, Virginia, on Tuesday, said he "wasn’t very smart" for his trips before the debate.

“I didn’t have my best night ... I decided to travel around the world a couple of times, going through I don’t know how many time zones – I figure it was about 50 time zones – in the couple of weeks before the debate,” he said.

“And I didn’t listen to my staff. And I came back and I fell asleep onstage.”

Attendees at the fundraiser took his remarks to be a self-deprecating joke and responded with laughter, at which point Biden said he was offering “an explanation,” not “an excuse.”

Biden’s schedule was filled with national and international travel in the days and weeks leading up to the debate, during which he spoke in a raspy voice, paused for long periods, and appeared to lose his train of thought.

On June 16, he hosted a glitzy fundraiser event in Los Angeles – some 2,000 miles from the debate venue in Atlanta – alongside stars including George Clooney, Julia Roberts and Barbra Streisand, where he raised some $30m for his campaign.

Several days earlier, he had been at his family home in Wilmington, Delaware, following the guilty verdict against his son, Hunter Biden.

The week before, he had joined other world leaders in France for the 80th anniversary of the D-Day landings on June 6 – some 4,200 miles from Atlanta.

Biden’s comments come as his campaign tries to play down the age factor in the presidential race. As the oldest-ever serving president, Biden would be 82 by the time he took the oath of office for the second time in January 2025 – should he win.

It comes as many senior allies of Biden, including Nancy Pelosi, have voiced concerns about Biden’s mental acuity and health. The former House speaker said voters’ questions were “legitimate” and called on both candidates to undergo testing.

“I think it’s a legitimate question to say, ‘Is this an episode or is this a condition’,” Pelosi told MSNBC host Andrea Mitchell on Tuesday.

Elsewhere, Rep Lloyd Doggett of Texas has called for Biden to end his re-election campaign, marking the first time a sitting Democratic member of Congress has supported the president dropping out of the race.

Biden has run “substantially behind” other Democratic candidates in high-stakes races, has trailed Trump in most polls, and then “failed” to expose his Republican rival’s lies during the debate, Doggett said. “Our overriding consideration must be who has the best hope of saving our democracy from an authoritarian takeover by a criminal and his gang.”

In an op-ed for Newsweek, former Democratic congressman Tim Ryan called on Vice-President Kamala Harris to replace Biden as the party’s nominee.

However, the optics of Thursday’s debate and Biden’s claims of sleep deprivation come following accusations that, behind closed doors, the president is said to be a long way from the softly-spoken, timid man who appeared on stage.

An anonymous senior administration official previously told Politico that Biden often unleashes his wrath upon staff, so much so that aides that pull together the president’s formal briefings are known to tiptoe around topics that could spark red-hot fury from him during meetings.

“It’s like, ‘You can’t include that, that will set him off,’ or ‘Put that in, he likes that,’” they said. “Because he is not a pleasant person to be around when he’s being briefed. It’s very difficult, and people are scared s***less of him.”

Advisers and allies have grown worried by recent incidents, such as when Biden appeared confused during a D-Day anniversary event in France on June 6. The following day, during a meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, Biden misstated the purpose of fresh military aid to the country.

A few days later, on June 10, Biden seemed to freeze up during an early Juneteenth celebration.