"I lost a ton of respect for him": Biden's latest performance leaves Democrats more worried

Put aside the alarming debate performance, the concerning polls and the god-awful vibes: The reason Democrats are still in disarray over the viability of President Joe Biden’s candidacy is because President Joe Biden keeps demonstrating, in each and every public appearance, that the concerns about his fitness and ability to campaign vigorously for the next four months — to say nothing of governing for another four years — are devastatingly valid.

Speaking Monday with NBC News’ Lester Holt, Biden looked and sounded all of his 81 years, conceding it’s a “legitimate question to ask” if he can keep doing this until “he’s 83 years old, or 84 years” (he’d be 86 when a second term ends). Asked about his June 27 showing, and what happens if “you have another performance on that par,” Biden was both incoherent and in denial.

“What happened,” he asked, mumbling something that the transcript describes as “INAUDIBLE.” Asked the question again, he answered: “I don’t plan on having another performance at that level.”

The concern among Democrats is that no one planned on him performing at that level last time around, particularly not after the president had 12 days to rest and prepare. The Biden campaign had long sold the debate as the moment the race would “reset”: voters would see Trump as unhinged, Biden as normal, and the polls would soon reflect that — all the president had to do was appear more “with it” than six-second clips on right-wing social media would suggest.

Biden’s performance shattered the trust that many Democrats had in him and his campaign. Although he has smartly cast doubts about his candidacy as stemming from “elites,” both in his party and the media, polls suggest a majority of Democratic voters have also lost confidence in his ability to win this November. Not even Biden is confident enough in his abilities to have another showdown with Trump in the coming weeks: “I’m gonna debate him when we agreed to debate,” he told NBC.

That means September, or: after the Democratic National Convention, the party’s last-best chance to nominate Vice President Kamala Harris or someone else more capable of communicating their agenda and the threats a second Trump presidency poses to democracy, at home and elsewhere.

Biden, who insists he doesn’t need to watch his June debate performance to understand what others saw because “I was there,” gave more reason to doubt his abilities in an interview with Complex’s Speedy Morman. A clear attempt to appeal to the youth, conducted about 12 hours after a solid if not gaffe-free press conference, he was once again slow, quiet and at times dishonest, such as when he insisted his administration is only providing Israel with “defensive weapons” (he resumed providing the Netanyahu government with 500-pound bombs this month).

But forget the fact checks: the interview, just in terms of optics, was excruciating — it’s hard to see anyone under the age of 30 sticking with it more than three minutes, which would be enough time to hear Biden claim that, “in 2020,” Obama had “asked me to be vice president.”

Teleprompters aren’t much better these days. Following the attempted assassination of Donald Trump, Biden told the nation that it should address political disputes not with violence but at the “battle box.” In an address before the NAACP on Tuesday, Biden boasted about his proposal to cap rent increases by corporate landlords to just “$55”; in fact, he has proposed capping them at 5%.

Biden’s calls with skeptical Democrats are reportedly much worse. Speaking to Puck’s Julia Ioffe, an anonymous Democratic lawmaker said the president only validated criticism in a Saturday call with moderate members of the House caucus.

“The president was rambling, dismissive of concerns, [and] unable or unprepared to present a campaign strategy,” the lawmaker said.

“The call was even worse than the debate,” said another participant. “He was rambling; he’d start an answer then lose his train of thought, then would just say ‘whatever.’ I lost a ton of respect for him.”

So far 20 Democratic members of Congress have explicitly called on Biden to drop out. The number all but calling on him to drop out is much higher.

“I think if he is our nominee, I think we lose,” Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., recently told donors, according to The New York Times. That’s a sentiment reportedly shared by former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., who has been “working the phones” to organize opposition to Biden’s candidacy, fearing he won’t just lose the White House but cost Democrats the House and Senate.

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The Biden campaign, in turn, has leaned on brute force, its allies in the Democratic National Committee planning to plow ahead with formalizing the president’s nomination as soon as this month, weeks before the convention. That comes as brutal swing-state polls suggest Biden is lagging behind other Democratic candidates by more than 10% — on track for a landslide loss in the Electoral College — and comments from the president suggesting he doesn’t take them seriously (and reports that he’s surrounded himself with people who may be incapable of delivering the uncomfortable truth).

Some Democrats have resigned themselves to loser talk, telling reporters that they have no choice but to stick with Biden and lose in November. Others are organizing, Axios reporting that members of Congress — including Reps. Susan Wild, D-Pa., Mike Quigley, D-Ill., and Pat Ryan, D-N.Y. — are circulating a letter pushing back on the DNC’s effort to make Biden the party’s nominee as soon as possible.

“[S]tifling debate and shutting down any possible change in the Democratic ticket through an unnecessary and unprecedented ‘virtual roll call’ in the days ahead is a terrible idea,” the letter states. “It could deeply undermine the morale and unity of Democrats — from delegates, volunteers, grassroots organizers and donors to ordinary voters — at the worst possible time” (after news of the letter broke, the DNC announced it was backing off).

The debate over Biden’s viability cannot go on forever. But the strongest argument against the president’s candidacy can be found not in any poll or letter from nervous lawmakers, but in the fact that his candidacy asks Democrats to campaign on a lie that is exposed by just about every public appearance: that he can keep doing this until January 2029.