Washington:

Democrats shocked by Joe Biden’s dismal debate performance urged the US president Tuesday to be transparent about his mental fitness as he faced the first call from his own side to drop out of the election.

Some supporters have expressed growing doubts about the 81-year-old after last week’s televised showdown with Donald Trump when Biden stumbled over his words and lost his train of thought — exacerbating fears about his age.

Congressman Lloyd Doggett became the first Democratic lawmaker to publicly call on Biden to make way for another candidate, saying he was hopeful the president would “make the painful and difficult decision to withdraw.”

Nancy Pelosi, a former House speaker and a grandee of the Democratic Party, said in her own statement it was “legitimate” to ask whether Biden’s debate disaster was indicative of a deeper problem rather than a one-off.

Biden has not given a live interview or held a press conference since the debacle, meaning he has not had to give unscripted comments under pressure again.

ABC News announced that he would be interviewed by the network on Friday, with the first clips released that day.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre on Tuesday admitted the debate was “a bad night” for the president but added that Biden “knows how to come back” from adversity.

“We understand. We’re not taking away from what you all saw,” she told reporters. “I think the president’s work record certainly speaks for itself.”

She dismissed questions about Biden needing a cognitive test, and said the president would speak to high-ranking Democrats, before holding a press conference during a NATO summit in Washington next week.

– ‘Horrified’ –

The polling margins between the president and his Republican predecessor have been razor-thin and almost static for months, with Trump showing a slight advantage in the all-important swing states.

Biden pushed for an unusually early first debate in hopes that he could jolt the race while there was still time to build on any momentum gained — but the plan backfired.

Democratic Senator Sheldon Whitehouse told WPRI-TV he was “pretty horrified” by the president’s performance during the 90-minute CNN match-up, watched by more than 50 million Americans.

Jared Golden, a vulnerable Democrat in conservative-leaning House district, raised eyebrows with an op-ed in his local paper in Maine in which he said Biden’s poor showing “was not a surprise.”

“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,” he said, explaining he believed US democracy would endure.

The White House has always shrugged off concern about Biden’s mental acuity, sometimes with marked irritation.

His campaign — under pressure over its tactics — hit out at “self-important podcasters” in a memo widely seen as a swipe at a group of former Barack Obama staffers and slammed demands from “the bedwetting brigade” for Biden drop out.

But Vermont Senator Peter Welch, a Democrat, told news website Semafor on Tuesday that Biden’s team had “a dismissive attitude towards people who are raising questions for discussion.”

– Slowed down –

Biden has visibly slowed over the last year.

It has been several months since the president, who has fallen in public on several occasions, stopped using his plane’s high gangway, preferring a shorter, more stable staircase.

He has also surrounded himself with aides for the short walk from the White House to his helicopter on the lawn, preventing cameras from focusing on his stiff gait.

Biden, who has always been gaffe-prone, has not given a long press conference since January 2022 and spends almost every weekend in one of his Delaware homes, with no official schedule.

When he recently visited France to commemorate the 1944 Allied landings, he went straight from the airport to his hotel, where he remained for an entire day, with no public appearances.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Washington:

The White House said Tuesday that President Joe Biden can bounce back from his poor debate performance last week, adding there was no need for him to prove his cognitive abilities.

“He knows how to come back,” White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters, adding that his medical team had previously said a cognitive test for Biden, 81, “is not warranted, it is not necessary.”

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

After a rocky debate performance on Thursday night, political analysts and several US media organisations have been calling for US President Joe Biden to drop out of the 2024 race. Now, the former White House deputy director of photography under the Biden administration has also joined the growing chorus.

In an Instagram story after the debate, Chandler West wrote, “It’s time for Joe to go,” Axios reported.

“I know many of these people and how the White House operates. They will say he has a ‘cold’ or just experienced a ‘bad night,’ but for weeks and months, in private, they have all said what we saw last night—Joe is not as strong as he was just a couple of years ago. The debate was not the first bad day … it’s not gonna be the last,” Mr West wrote.

He further claimed that White House aides have known for months that Joe Biden’s mental health has been deteriorating but covered it up ahead of the debate. 

Several unnamed current and former Biden aides told Axios that the president is mentally engaged from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., but outside of this time frame, he is more likely to have verbal lapses and fatigue.

Notably, President Biden’s age is a particular concern with voters and there have been calls from some Democrats for him to step aside for a new candidate. Despite weak poll numbers and questions about his age, he has stuck to his plan to seek a second term.

However, the 81-year-old president’s alarming presidential debate performance on June 27, has renewed calls for him to step aside. Biden, frequently seen fumbling and freezing during public events, appeared to lose his train of thought while answering a question by a CNN anchor on the economy. The Democrat made yet another mistake while answering a question on voters feeling “worse off” under his presidency.

If Joe Biden withdraws his name, delegates from 50 states will have to look for a replacement at the earliest. Vice President Kamala Harris, California Governor Gavin Newsom, Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer and Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro are among the names that can represent the party. 

Washington:

Democratic President Joe Biden and his Republican rival Donald Trump take the stage on Thursday night for a debate that will offer voters a rare side-by-side look at the two oldest candidates ever to seek the U.S. presidency.

Biden, 81, and Trump, 78, will be under pressure to display their command of issues and avoid verbal stumbles as they seek a breakout moment in a race that opinion polls show has been deadlocked for months.

The 90-minute televised debate, the first between a sitting president and a former one, will air at 9 p.m. ET (0100 GMT on Friday) on CNN and takes place far earlier than normal – more than four months before the Nov. 5 Election Day.

It comes at a moment of profound polarization and deep-seated anxiety among voters about the state of American politics. Two-thirds of voters said in a May Reuters/Ipsos poll that they were concerned violence could follow the election, nearly four years after a mob of Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol.

Trump will take the stage as a felon who still faces a trio of criminal cases, including to his efforts to overturn the 2020 election. The former president, who continues to falsely claim that his defeat was the result of fraud and has suggested he will punish his political enemies if returned to power, will need to convince undecided voters that he does not pose a mortal threat to democracy, as Biden asserts.

Biden arrived in Atlanta on Thursday afternoon under intense pressure to deliver a forceful performance after months of Republican assertions his faculties have dulled with age.

Ahead of the debate, the Biden campaign released a video featuring former Trump aides saying they would not support him this time. “Take it from the people who know Donald Trump best – he is unfit to be president,” Biden said on X.

Biden advisers say he will emphasize Trump’s role in threatening abortion access, portray him as a danger to democratic norms and remind voters of Trump’s often chaotic 2017-2021 term in office.

Trump will focus on the high levels of inflation and record numbers of migrants who have entered the country illegally under Biden’s watch, and will also question his world leadership at a time of war in Gaza and Ukraine, Trump advisers said.

Trump, whose plane landed in Georgia about 3-1/2 hours before the debate, posted on social media what appeared to be advice from a former member of his administration about how to respond to attacks on his environmental record. The notes from former Environmental Protection Agency chief Andrew Wheeler urged Trump to say he will lower carbon dioxide emissions and encourage domestic energy production.

A campaign spokesman said the post was not a mistake. “The Biden team has been previewing their attacks — albeit moronic attacks — all week,” spokesman Stephen Cheung said.

DISLIKED DUO

While national polls show a tied race, Biden has trailed Trump in polls of most battleground states and recently saw his financial edge erased after Trump was criminally convicted over trying to cover up hush money payments to porn star Stormy Daniels.

“Biden needs a change in the status quo, and this debate is his best opportunity yet to do it,” said Jacob Rubashkin, an elections analyst at the nonpartisan website Inside Elections.

Neither Biden nor Trump is popular and many Americans remain deeply ambivalent about their choices. About a fifth of voters say they have not picked a candidate, are leaning toward a third-party candidate or may sit the election out, the latest Reuters/Ipsos poll showed.

“They’re horrible candidates,” said Kathy Elder, a 59-year-old sales manager who voted for Trump in 2016 before switching to Biden in 2020.

Elder said she cringes whenever they speak – for different reasons.

When it comes to Biden, she said, “Can he speed this up and actually talk?” As for Trump, she said, “What the hell is going to come out of his mouth?”

Biden and Trump have made little effort to disguise their mutual dislike. During their first debate in 2020, Trump aggressively talked over Biden in a performance that turned off many voters.

CNN will attempt to avoid cross-talk by muting the candidates’ microphones when it is not their turn. The debate will take place without an audience, and neither candidate is allowed to bring notes or props, though they will have a pen and paper.

Trump’s niece Mary Trump, who has been critical of her uncle, will join Biden’s campaign in its media spin room following the debate, a campaign official said.

The second and final debate in this year’s campaign is scheduled for September.

See a Reuters photo slide show of previous debates.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Atlanta:

Joe Biden and Donald Trump square off Thursday in a crucial US presidential debate that carries enormous stakes for both candidates as they battle for any advantage in their tight race for the White House.

Millions of Americans will tune in to the highly anticipated clash — the opening salvo in what promises to be a bruising summer of campaigning, in a deeply polarized country still scarred by the chaos and violence of the 2020 election.

With only two debates this election cycle and national polls showing the pair locked in the tightest of contests, Thursday’s event at CNN headquarters in Atlanta — starting at 9:00 pm (0100 GMT Friday) — takes on heightened significance.

For many voters, the choice between the 81-year-old Biden, the oldest ever incumbent, and the 78-year-old Trump, now a convicted felon, is an uninspiring one — a dynamic both candidates need to counter.

For Trump, an instinctive political pugilist, the challenge will be to rein in the aggressive tendencies he unleashed — to his detriment — in their first chaotic debate four years ago.

The Democratic president will be desperate to avoid any major gaffes that could underline concerns about his age.

He also will focus on his key campaign message that Trump poses an existential threat to US democracy.

Biden arrived in Georgia about six hours before the on-air showdown, and took the opportunity to greet supporters outside his hotel in Atlanta.

His challenger touched down later aboard his private jet, pumping his fist to supporters on the tarmac before he ducked into a waiting vehicle.

There is certainly no love lost between the two candidates, and both sides have agreed to a series of debate rules aimed at minimizing the prospect of a shouting match.

There will be no studio audience, depriving them of the momentum that comes from ginning up supporters, and microphones will cut out when a candidate’s speaking time is over.

To coincide with the debate, both camps unleashed a series of fresh attack ads, with Trump’s team taking out TV spots accusing Biden of mismanaging the economy and encouraging illegal immigration.

In a morning post on his Truth Social platform, Trump argued that Biden was the real threat to democracy, “and a threat to the survival and existence of our country itself.”

The Democratic Party, meanwhile, paid for five massive billboards in Atlanta trolling Trump over his legal woes.

“Donald, welcome to Atlanta for the first time since becoming a convicted felon. Congrats – or whatever…” the signs said.

– Neck-and-neck in polls –

Trump enjoys a slight advantage in the all-important swing states, but the overall polling looks extremely close in an election likely to be decided by a few photo finishes in a handful of battlegrounds.

The latest Quinnipiac University poll shows Trump edging ahead of Biden nationally, 49 percent to 45 percent.

The rivals both step onstage for the 90-minute debate seeking to allay fears about serious political liabilities.

Biden faces the most concern about his mental sharpness, with voters much more likely to bring up his age than Trump’s, despite the Republican being just three years younger.

Ahead of the debate, both Trump and Biden have had missteps, stumbling over words or appearing muddled.

Trump is also engulfed in controversy over his inflammatory rhetoric, his recent conviction on 34 counts of falsifying business records, and fears he would weaponize the presidency to settle personal scores.

– Fine-tuning or freewheeling –

Biden has spent the last week off the radar at the Camp David retreat near Washington, fine-tuning his attack lines in mock debates under real TV lighting.

Trump’s preparation has been more relaxed, eschewing dress rehearsals in favor of informal policy roundtables and workshopping debate strategy with rally crowds.

Aides have encouraged him to focus on his perceived strength on the economy and crime, while Biden will seek to paint Trump as unhinged and unfit for office.

The Trump campaign has repeatedly characterized Biden as feeble and incompetent, but changed tack following warnings that setting low expectations for the Democratic president would only help him.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)