During a portion of an interview with ABC News aired on Friday’s edition of “World News Tonight,” President Joe Biden said that he knew during last week’s debate that things were going poorly and “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 can’t quote it, The New York Times had me down ten points before the debate, nine now or whatever the hell it is. The fact of the matter is, that what I looked at is that he also lied 28 times.” And “I couldn’t — I mean, the way the debate ran, not — my fault, no one else’s fault,” and that his struggles before 2024 Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump started speaking were just him having a bad night.
ABC host George Stephanopoulos asked, “Well, what I’m trying — 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 answered, “Yeah, look, the whole way I prepared — nobody’s fault but mine, nobody’s fault but mine. 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 can’t quote it, The New York Times had me down ten points before the debate, nine now or whatever the hell it is. 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 the debate ran, not — my fault, no one else’s fault, no one else’s fault.”
Stephanopoulos then said, “But it seemed like you were having trouble from the first question in, even before he spoke.”
Biden responded, “Well, I just had a bad night.”
Earlier in the interview, Biden also stated that he didn’t follow his instincts in terms of his debate preparation.
Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett
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