During Biden’s interview on Friday with ABC News, journalist George Stephanopoulos asked the president whether the halting performance the nation witnessed during last week’s debate was “a bad episode or the sign of a more serious condition?”
“It was a bad episode,” Biden said. “No indication of any serious condition. … I didn’t listen to my instincts in terms of preparing. It was a bad night.”
“You came home from Europe about 11 or 12 days before the debate,” Stephanopoulos continued. “You spent six days in Camp David. Why wasn’t that enough rest time, enough recovery time?”
“Because I was sick. I was feeling terrible,” Biden responded. “Matter of fact, the docs with me, I asked if they did a COVID test because they were trying to figure out what’s 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.”
Asked if he had rewatched the debate or if he realized how badly it was going as the event unfolded, Biden’s answer was hard to follow.
“The whole way I prepared, nobody’s fault, mine, nobody’s fault but mine, I, uh, I prepared what I usually would do, sitting down as I did come back with foreign leaders or the National Security Council for explicit detail and I realized about partway through that, you know, all the — I get quoted from — the New York Times had me down 10 points before the debate, 9 now or whatever the hell it is,” Biden said. “The fact of the matter is that what I looked at is that he also lied 28 times. I couldn’t, I mean the way that the debate ran, not — my fault, no one else’s fault…”
