A meeting, a high-risk interview, an aggressive campaign program… Joe Biden continued to fight for his political survival on Friday.
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Asked from afar by journalists whether he was still capable of beating Donald Trump in November, the 81-year-old Democrat simply said “Yes”, before flying to Wisconsin (north), a state that will be decisive for the election.
The American president knows that from now on every gesture, every intonation counts to reassure his supporters, whose anxiety has not subsided since his completely failed debate on June 27 against his Republican predecessor.
“We are going to turn the page, we are going to move forward,” promised Karine Jean-Pierre, White House spokeswoman.
Since that televised duel, Americans have not seen Joe Biden speak freely without a teleprompter and over an extended time frame.
He will have the opportunity on Friday, in an interview with a star journalist and presenter of ABC, George Stephanopoulos, an interview which will be recorded in Wisconsin.
Wisconsin
Joe Biden will also have to show energy during the meeting planned in Madison, Wisconsin, in this state that he won by only 20,682 votes against Donald Trump in 2020.
“I have no intention of leaving,” he assured on Thursday during Independence Day.
His campaign team is doubling down on its efforts. On Friday, it released an intense battle plan for July, including a blitz of television ads and trips to all the key states, including the southwest during the Republican convention (July 15-18).
Joe Biden is also due to host a summit of NATO leaders next week, where he will hold a press conference, another highly anticipated exercise.
Donald Trump chose on Thursday to fire his arrows at Vice President Kamala Harris, until now a running mate with unfailing loyalty, but who would obviously be a potential candidate in the event of the American president withdrawing.
“With her insatiable thirst for power, Kamala has done everything possible to hide the health of ‘Joe the Crook’ from the American people,” wrote a campaign spokesperson for the 78-year-old Republican billionaire.
As proof that Friday’s interview is crucial, the television channel has changed its broadcast schedule.
ABC originally planned to show excerpts on Friday, then Saturday, with the full broadcast on Sunday.
Special broadcast
But it is finally on Friday evening, at 8 p.m. local time (midnight GMT) that viewers will be able to see the interview in its entirety, as part of a special broadcast.
Joe Biden will face journalist George Stephanopoulos, who knows the workings of political communication like no one else, having worked closely with former Democratic President Bill Clinton, both on the campaign trail and in the White House.
Even if he comes out of this exercise honorably, the American president will not be saved, but if he shows himself to be as hesitant and confused as he was when faced with his Republican rival last week, his candidacy for a second term will be hanging by a thread.
The disturbing revelations are now coming one after another in the American press.
In Axiosit was said on Friday that Joe Biden sometimes struggles to remember the names of interlocutors he has known for a long time.
Joe Biden’s teams have swept aside this information, which has, until now, always been slipped anonymously, while attacking the media and in particular their current bête noire, the New York Times.
“Imagine for a second that the New York Times “attacks Trump’s fascism as vigorously as Biden’s age,” wrote a supporter of the American president in X, in a message later relayed by a member of his campaign team.
The editorial board of the prestigious daily newspaper has called on Joe Biden to withdraw from the race for the White House.
