• by Adam Buckman , Featured Columnist, July 9, 2024

ABC’s interview with President Biden Friday night was so cringeworthy that it became almost too difficult to watch.

I actually averted my eyes at times, but of course that did not prevent me from still hearing it, and also sticking with it. Mercifully, it was only 22 minutes long. 

I am no particular fan of Joe Biden’s, but I felt embarrassed to be watching this elderly man struggle to put his thoughts into words in this very public forum, and for the most part, failing at it. I felt guilty to be a spectator at this spectacle.

It was an odd, off-putting TV show. One of the first things I observed was technical. 

It seemed to me that the words of both Biden and his interviewer, George Stephanopoulos, were not in sync with their mouths. It was the kind of glitch that is the life’s blood of conspiracy theorists.

Then there was the interview itself. Understandably, Stephanopoulos hammered away for almost the entire interview at the issue of Biden’s cognitive fitness for office.

That was certainly the chief issue on the table in the aftermath of the President’s performance in the debate with Donald Trump two weeks earlier.

But where were the follow-up questions to some of the President’s statements, which in and of themselves gave evidence of his state of mind if Stephanopoulos had pursued them?

A couple of them come to mind. In one exchange, Stephanopoulos asked Biden if he would submit to independent cognitive testing.

Biden’s answer to this yes-or-no question rambled from “running the world” to Madeleine Albright. 

Stephanopoulos:Would you be willing to undergo an independent medical evaluation that included neurological and cognit- cognitive tests and release the results to the American people?

Biden: Look. I have a cognitive test every single day. Every day I have that test. Everything I do. You know, not only am I campaigning, but I’m running the world. Not … and that’s not hi … sounds like hyperbole, but we are the essential nation of the world …

“Madeleine Albright was right. And every single day, for example, today before I came out here, I’m on the phone with … with the prime minister of … well, anyway, I shouldn’t get into detail, but with Netanyahu. I’m on the phone with the new prime minister of England …

“I’m workin’ on what we were doin’ with regard to … in Europe with regard to expansion of NATO and whether it’s gonna stick. I’m takin’ on Putin. I mean, every day there’s no day I go through there are not those decisions I have to make every single day.”

“Running the world”? Surely Stephanopoulos might have asked what the President meant by that.

“Takin’ on Putin”? Stephanopoulos might have questioned this too, perhaps asking why the President feels he has to “take on” Putin as if the conflict between Russia and the U.S. is some sort of personal grudge match between the two men.

Later in the interview, Biden went even further on the subject of Putin. “Can you serve effectively for the next four years?” Stephanopoulos asked.

“George, I’m the guy that put NATO together, the future,” answered Biden. “No one thought I could expand it. I’m the guy that shut Putin down. No one thought [that] could happen.”

List of possible questions Stephanopoulos might have asked: When did you “put NATO together”? Who thought you could not expand it? How did you “shut Putin down”? 

After the interview was over, it was on to the four-member panel of ABC News analysts -- chief Washington correspondent Jonathan Karl, chief global affairs correspondent Martha Raddatz, chief White House correspondent Mary Bruce, and senior congressional correspondent Rachel Scott.

One after another, they dutifully reported on the Democratic reaction to Biden’s performance in the interview. 

They concluded from the reaction they were seeing and hearing that the interview did little to quash the growing calls within the party for Biden to quit the campaign.

They quoted unnamed sources who were all Democrats, leading me to wonder whether these Washington news-media insiders even have any sources, friends or any contact at all with anyone on the other side of the aisle.

I realize that the reactions of Democrats were paramount to this story, but if memory serves, Republicans were not even mentioned, as if this story involved only Democrats, and not the other half of the country.

Some of the post-interview reaction I read afterwards positioned Biden’s performance as “striking back” at critics and naysayers who became alarmed about his stamina and cognitive abilities in the debate with Trump.

In the opinion of some, Biden handled himself much better in the interview, and that the interview represented a comeback of sorts from his debate performance.

My own opinion is that he did no better in the interview than he did in the debate. 

My record of prognostication, especially in the political realm, is atrocious. But the last note I made as the interview was coming to an end Friday night was two words: He’s toast.