Joe Biden’s big interview with George Stephanopoulos is out, and the big question circulating is whether it will be enough to quell the uprising within the Democratic Party.

Was it? What we saw in the pre-released clips didn’t exactly scream game-changer.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Let’s start with the debate. You and your team have said that you had a bad night.

BIDEN: I did

STEPHANOPOULOS: But your friend Nancy Pelosi framed the question that is actually on the minds of millions of Americans. Was this a bad episode or the sign of a more serious condition?

BIDEN: It was a bad episode. No indication of any serious condition. I was exhausted. I didn’t listen to my instincts in terms of preparing, and I had a bad night.

STEPHANOPOULOS: You know, you say you were exhausted, and I know you’ve said that before as well, and you did have a tough month, but you came home from Europe about 11 or 12 days before the debate, spent six days in Camp David. Why wasn’t that enough rest time, enough recovery time?

BIDEN: Because I was sick. I was feeling terrible. Matter of fact, the docs with me, I asked, they did a COVID test to try to figure out what was wrong. They did a test to see whether or not I had some kind of infection, a virus. I didn’t. I just had a really bad cold.

Credit to Stephanopoulos for pressing the issue about Biden being “exhausted.” As pointed out, he came back from Europe 12 days before the debate. After a very light schedule, he then retreated to Camp David for nearly a week, not appearing in public again until the night of the debate. That idea that jet lag, something that the president previously blamed for his faceplant, was a factor simply doesn’t add up.

As to the idea that he “had a cold” that was so severe it only affected him the night of the debate (he showed no symptoms of one at a rally the next day) and somehow caused him to have numerous mental collapses — that likewise doesn’t add up. The White House can’t get its story straight, and you can tell they are now trying to massage things into a coherent message. It’s not working.

Regardless, as somewhat coherent as that first clip sounded, it didn’t take long for the trainwreck to commence.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Did you ever watch the debate afterwards?

BIDEN: I don’t think I did, no.

STEPHANOPOULOS: What I want to get at is what were you experiencing as you were going through the debate. Did you know how badly it was going?

BIDEN: Yeah, look…(five-second pause)…the whole way I prepared, nobody’s fault mine, nobody’s fault but mine, I prepared, what I usually would sitting down as I did come back with foreign leaders or national security leaders for explicit detail, and I realized about part way through that, you know, I get quoted, The New York Times had me down 10 points before the debate, nine now, 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, my fault, no one else’s fault.

STEPHANOPOULOS: But it seemed like you were having trouble from the first question in, even before he spoke.

BIDEN: Well, I just had a bad night.

There’s so much there that it’s hard to know where to begin. To start, how does he not know whether he watched the debate or not? That’s an easy lay-up of a question that requires a simple, straightforward answer. Instead, Biden hedges on the one point he can’t afford to hedge on. The right answer there is to say that he did go back and watch it. To have not done so is to admit he’s so out of it that he can’t do basic retrospection while fighting for his political life.

Past that, there’s the complete incoherence of his answer and the general frailty of his appearance. Biden’s statement is a jumbled mess that makes no sense whatsoever at multiple points. He’s skipped over what seemed to be entire sentences at times, clearly having trouble keeping his talking points straight.

Then there’s the weird, random mention of a New York Times poll in which he claims they had him down by “10 points before the debate, nine now, or whatever the hell it is.” What did that have to do with anything being discussed? Never mind that it’s completely false.

The rest of the interview was no better. At times, Biden got angry and made nonsensical statements, such as this claim that he “shut Putin down.”

STEPHANOPOULOS: Elections are about the future, not the past. They are about tomorrow, not yesterday, and the question on so many people’s minds right now is, “Can you serve effectively for the next four years?”

BIDEN: George, I’m the guy that put NATO together, the future, no one thought I could expand it. I’m the guy who shut Putin down. No one thought it could happen. I’m the guy who put together a South Pacific initiative with (inaudible). I’m the guy that got 50 nations, not only in Europe, outside of Europe as well, to help Ukraine. I’m the guy that got Japanese to expand their budget, so I mean, me, for example, when I’m decided, we used to have 40 percent computer chipping, we invented the chip, that little chip, the computer chip.

I can’t explain why he started talking like Batman there, but it is what it is. Almost nothing he says is true there. Putin is currently still invading Europe, and Russia is more emboldened than it has been in decades. To say he “shut Putin down” is a flat-out lie. Biden also did not “put NATO together,” nor did anyone say expanding NATO couldn’t be done. As to the mention of computer chips, your guess is as good as mine as to why he suddenly shifted to that. It doesn’t seem to fit anything he was talking about.

Moving to Biden’s mental and physical health, Biden likely made that situation worse with his answers.

 

 

And blah, blah, blah, lies, lies, lies – he’s actually plagiarizing Trump in some portions. – Val