In view of the debate about his suitability for a second term, US President Joe Biden went on the offensive in a speech to supporters: “I’m staying in the race. I will beat Donald Trump,” Biden said on Friday at a campaign appearance in the US state of Wisconsin, one of the key states in the presidential election. “I am a candidate and I will win again,” he reiterated.
“There are people who don’t care about your votes,” Biden said, referring to the Democratic primaries, which he had clearly won. “They are trying to push me out. Let me be very clear: I am staying in the race” for the White House, Biden said to around a thousand supporters, according to his campaign team.
According to a senior government official, Biden plans to hold a press conference on Thursday on the sidelines of the NATO summit in Washington. After a meeting with the heads of state and government of NATO countries and several countries in the Asia-Pacific region, “the president will hold a press conference and answer questions from journalists,” said the US official, who wished to remain anonymous.
Since Biden’s appearance in the televised debate with former President Donald Trump on June 27, a debate has erupted among Democrats about whether they should replace the 81-year-old with another candidate for the presidential election on November 5. Biden spoke in a hoarse voice during the TV debate, repeatedly got tangled up in his formulations and did not finish sentences.
The Democratic governor of the US state of Massachusetts called on Biden to “carefully consider” his re-election bid. “The best solution” is now a decision that the president must make, Governor Maura Healey said on Friday. She “urges him to listen to the American people in the coming days and carefully consider whether he remains our best hope of beating Donald Trump,” she continued.
On Friday, Biden was scheduled to give an interview to ABC News in Wisconsin to dispel the massive doubts about his mental fitness that had been raised by his disastrous performance in the televised debate with Trump. The interview was scheduled to be broadcast in full on Friday evening (local time, Saturday 2:00 a.m. CEST).
