Olivier Knox: Democrats give Biden one week to turn it around

The President struggled through Friday's debate against Former President Donald Trump, even finding it hard to finish sentences at times. 

US News and World Report Senior National Correspondent Olivier Knox says it was Biden's worst public appearance during his time in office. 

 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Difficult to know when you're looking at highlights with or
anything out shone this particular moment. I just won two
club championships, not even senior, two regular club championships.

Speaker 2 (00:09):
To do that, you have to be quite smart.

Speaker 1 (00:12):
Where I'm happy to play golf. If you carry your
own bag, I think you can do it.

Speaker 2 (00:17):
That's the biggest live It's a six handicap of all
I was an eight handicap.

Speaker 1 (00:22):
Yeah, eight, But I've seen your swing. I know you swing.

Speaker 2 (00:28):
Let's act like President Trump. Let's not act like children.

Speaker 1 (00:33):
Let's not. We're still talking about it. Four days later,
presidents at Camp David. Of course, we're family working out
what to do next. The panic and the Democratic Party
has been palpable. Former presidents have been rolled out to
reassure people a bad debate does not a campaign derail.
Senior national correspondent at US News and will report to
oliviate Henry is with us. Good morning to.

Speaker 2 (00:52):
You, Good morning.

Speaker 1 (00:55):
Could you believe what you were watching?

Speaker 2 (00:59):
No? No, I could not. You know, we had three
and a half years and countless live exchanges with President
Biden and that debate. Those ninety minutes on that debate
stage were easily the worst of his time in office
in terms of his public appearances, speaking, and the and

(01:19):
just the general state his general stake does.

Speaker 1 (01:22):
The fact he rolled out the next day looking bitter
and obomber, and Clinton rolled out as well to help
him out a bit, fix anything or.

Speaker 2 (01:29):
Not, Well, it'll it'll It's like a tourniquet, right, it stops,
it stops the bleeding in the immediate but if you
take a tourniquet off, the person will will keep bleeding.
So it's helpful to Joe Biden. Obviously it was necessary
for them to come out. But then you also see,
you know, a bunch of former aids, former White House

(01:51):
aids to Barack Obama coming out and saying Biden needs
to step aside. So there's still they are still under
considerable pressure. In the last four three hours, they've been
trying to reassure the donor base. They've been hyping up fundraising.
I think they're up to thirty three million dollars since
the debate, half of them from first time donors. But
everyone's going to be watching polling from America's battleground states

(02:13):
to see just how badly this damaged President Bind's reelection effort.

Speaker 1 (02:17):
What's your assessment with it. There's a second debate, well, Biden.

Speaker 2 (02:23):
Biden now needs one, and they've already they've already telegraphed
that he would participate in one if one happened. I mean,
there is one notionally on the schedule in September, but
he needs one now. He needs he needs to be
able to well, he needs one. If his team thinks
he can, he can deliver a completely different performance, obviously,
but he needs stuff to reset his campaign. He's got

(02:45):
he has a small advantage going into this week, and
that there are a lot of things that are going
to be demanding the public's attention, you know, the Paris
Olympics and that Yahoo's visit, things like that. So so
he's his best at now might be to just to
drop out of the headlines as much as possible, and
those things will stop the constant replays on television of

(03:07):
his debate performance. I mean, the way, the way that
I put it in my in my Peace for the
US News World report was if you want to know
how badly his night went, removing lead pipes made it
into his final remarks, but neither neither restoring abortion, abortion
access nor preserving Democracy in America did and that presumably

(03:29):
was the was the that was the remarks that he
would have prepared, knowing that they'd be invited to make
closing remarks. It was a terrible performance.

Speaker 1 (03:37):
Does he stay on the rice.

Speaker 2 (03:40):
Yes, I think he does. We have a new reporting
from the New York Times that says that family members
are encouraging him to stay in. It would be actually
pretty difficult to remove him against his will. So I
think as of right now, he stays in the race,
certainly in the barnstorming he has done since the debate,
He's done a few rallies, he's done a bunch of fundraisers.
He has not given any indication at all that he's

(04:03):
having second thoughts about running. So I think I understand
there's a lot of wish casting that he might step
aside and we might have a magical savior for the
Democratic Party. I don't think it's going to happen. I
think it's I think it's Biden Trump in November, barring
some cataclysmic event for Ideman.

Speaker 1 (04:18):
Olivia, appreciate your expertise. We'll get you on again soon.
Olivia Henry, who is the senior national correspondent, to the
US News and World Report for more from the mic
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