President Biden stepped up his re-election campaign by talking to two Black radio hosts for an interview that aired Thursday, but he spoke haltingly in some interviews and struggled to find the right phrases in others, saying he was proud to have them. “The first black woman to be a black president.”
He also stumbled over those words during a four-minute Fourth of July speech to military families at the White House, starting a story about former President Donald J. Trump, calling him “one of our colleagues, the former president” and then adding, “probably not must say, at any rate” before abruptly ending the story and continuing.
Mr. Biden made a mistake on WURD radio, based in Philadelphia, as he tried to deliver a line he had repeated before about being proud to be vice president for President Barack Obama. Earlier in the interview, he bragged about electing the first black woman to the Supreme Court and getting the first black woman to be vice president.
The president also made a mistake earlier in the interview when he said he was the first president elected statewide in Delaware. He appeared to be the first Catholic in the country to be elected across the country, going on to speak about John F. Kennedy, a Catholic.
Mr. Biden and his top aides said the president’s activities in the coming days were part of a series of campaign efforts designed to prove to voters, donors and activists that the presidential debate was nothing more than what he called “a bad night. . . “
Ammar Moussa, Mr. Biden’s campaign spokesman, criticized the news media for documenting the president’s stumbles.
“It’s clear what President Biden meant when he talked about his historical record, including several appointments to the federal bench,” she said, referring to the president’s comments about being a black woman. “This is not news and the media has passed the point of absurdity here.”
All of the president’s appearances have been scrutinized since he appeared distraught and confused in a debate against former President Donald J. Trump last Thursday, a performance that sparked a wave of anxiety among Democrats about whether he is too old to remain in the party. nominated.
The president is scheduled to sit down on Friday for an interview with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos after a campaign rally in Madison, Wis., which is scheduled to appear at a campaign event in Philadelphia.
On Thursday, the president used a radio interview to try to allay concerns about the debate among members of the Black community. The host of the show praised and thanked Mr. Biden after the interview.
In Mr. Biden’s appearance on “The Earl Ingram Show,” which is aimed at black listeners in Wisconsin but is also broadcast across the country, Mr. Ingram opened the show by asking the president to “talk about some of the accomplishments that he might have had on the record. you.”
But even in low-pressure interviews, the president sometimes stops talking while giving quick answers. Asked why the vote was important, Mr. Biden responded to this week’s Supreme Court decision on immunity for Mr. Trump.
“You need people, people who want to make sure – the Supreme Court just issued a decision, by the way, that threatens the American principle that we do not have a king in America,” he said. “No one is above the law.”
“Where we are always – we gave the executive of Donald Trump – the power to use the system – and it was never considered by the founders because of the people appointed by the court,” he said, apparently stuttering several times, the situation. he has struggled with it since childhood. “It’s only presidential immunity. They can say that I did this in my capacity as an executive, maybe it was wrong, but I did it. But this will remain – because of me – and these are the same people who say they want revenge.
The president’s responses to Mr. Ingram’s four questions were lengthy as they mostly stuck to listing his accomplishments in office and criticizing Mr. Trump. But in the 17-minute interview, he sometimes stopped mid-answer.
In his answer to the importance of the vote, he began talking about Mr. Trump’s proposal to increase tariffs on all Chinese goods imported into the United States. He stopped mid-answer, apologizing for taking so long.
“They want a 10 percent tariff on everything imported into the United States,” he said, “which experts show will raise taxes on the average American by 2,500 dollars, raise taxes while giving the next $5 trillion in tax cuts out. for everyone to make – anyway , only, I don’t want to be too wrapped up in it, really.
Mr Biden also stopped short of using an epithet to describe Mr Trump during his response in which he spoke of his son Beau, who died of brain cancer after serving a year in Iraq. Mr. Biden blamed his death on being close to so-called fire pits, where garbage is dumped.
“He was a very healthy man, came back with Stage 4 glioblastoma – more brain damage in that war than any other war – and he died,” Mr Biden said. “I’ll be damned if I’m going to allow this — pardon — this president, to talk about veterans like he’s saying.”
At the end of the interview with Mr. Ingram, the president again acknowledged his poor performance in the debate.
“The fact of the matter is, you know, it’s – I screwed up,” he said. “I made a mistake.”
