{"id":106285,"date":"2024-07-06T15:03:43","date_gmt":"2024-07-06T15:03:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lascrucestoday.com\/newstalklc\/exhausted-bad-episode-biden-doubles-down-on-debate-explanations-in-abc-news-exclusive\/"},"modified":"2024-07-06T15:03:43","modified_gmt":"2024-07-06T15:03:43","slug":"exhausted-bad-episode-biden-doubles-down-on-debate-explanations-in-abc-news-exclusive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lascrucestoday.com\/newstalklc\/exhausted-bad-episode-biden-doubles-down-on-debate-explanations-in-abc-news-exclusive\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Exhausted,’ ‘bad episode’: Biden doubles down on debate explanations in ABC News exclusive"},"content":{"rendered":"
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ABC News<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

(MADISON, Wis.) — President Joe Biden, in his first television interview since his CNN debate with Donald Trump, brushed off the poor performance as a “bad episode” and said he alone was to blame for what transpired.<\/p>\n

Biden sat down with ABC News anchor George Stephanopoulos in Madison, Wisconsin, on Friday after a fiery rally with Democratic supporters, during which Biden insisted he is remaining in the race.<\/p>\n

Stephanopoulos immediately dove into last Thursday’s showdown, which sparked widespread alarm among Democratic lawmakers and pundits about Biden’s ability to campaign and serve another four years.<\/p>\n

“Let’s start with the debate. You and your team have said you had a bad night,” Stephanopoulos began.<\/p>\n

“Sure did,” Biden responded.<\/p>\n

Stephanopoulos went on to ask Biden about a statement from former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who led the House during the first two years of Biden’s administration and ushered through some of his signature policy achievements.<\/p>\n

“But your friend Nancy Pelosi actually framed the question that I think is on the minds of millions of Americans: Was this a bad episode or the sign of a more serious condition?” Stephanopoulos asked.<\/p>\n

“It was a bad episode,” Biden said. “No indication of any serious condition. I was exhausted. I didn’t listen to my instincts in terms of preparing and — and a bad night.”<\/p>\n

Biden traveled internationally in mid-June to mark the 80th anniversary of D-Day in France. But he spent nearly a week at Camp David after that in the run-up to the debate to meet with close advisers and prepare.<\/p>\n

Stephanopoulos pressed Biden, “Why wasn’t that enough rest time, enough recovery time?”<\/p>\n

“Because I was sick. I was feeling terrible,” Biden said. “Matter of fact the docs with me. I asked if they did a COVID test because they’re trying to figure out what was wrong. They did a test to see whether or not I had some infection, you know, a virus. I didn’t. I just had a really bad cold.”<\/p>\n

“Did you ever watch the debate afterwards?” Stephanopoulos asked Biden.<\/p>\n

“I don’t think I did, no,” the president said.<\/p>\n

But did he know how badly it was going while he was on stage?<\/p>\n

“Yeah, look. The whole way I prepared, nobody’s fault, mine. Nobody’s fault but mine. I– I prepared what I usually would do sitting down as I did come back with foreign leaders or National Security Council for explicit detail. And I realized– partway through that, you know, all– I get quoted the New York Times had me down, ten points before the debate, nine now, or whatever the hell it is. The fact of the matter is, what I looked at is that he also lied 28 times. I couldn’t– I mean, the way the debate ran, not– my fault, nobody else’s fault, no one else’s fault.”<\/p>\n

“But it seemed like you were having trouble from the first question in, even before he spoke?” Stephanopoulos asked.<\/p>\n

“Well, I just had a bad night,” Biden said.<\/p>\n

ABC News offered a similar interview opportunity to Trump but he declined.<\/p>\n

Copyright \u00a9 2024, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ABC News (MADISON, Wis.) — President Joe Biden, in his first television interview since his CNN debate with Donald Trump, brushed off the poor performance as a “bad episode” and said he alone was to blame for what transpired. Biden sat down with ABC News anchor George Stephanopoulos in Madison,Read More →<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[156,31,2],"tags":[273,271,276,274,270,123,275,133,124,272,102,103],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lascrucestoday.com\/newstalklc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106285"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lascrucestoday.com\/newstalklc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lascrucestoday.com\/newstalklc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lascrucestoday.com\/newstalklc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lascrucestoday.com\/newstalklc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=106285"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lascrucestoday.com\/newstalklc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/106285\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lascrucestoday.com\/newstalklc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=106285"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lascrucestoday.com\/newstalklc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=106285"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lascrucestoday.com\/newstalklc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=106285"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}