President Biden acknowledged his poor performance in the debate in a radio interview on Thursday, saying he “failed” on the debate stage, but he said he has no plans to end his campaign and reiterated his determination to defeat former President Trump in November.
“It was a bad night,” he said in a pre-recorded interview with Wisconsin radio host Earl Ingram. “I messed up. I made mistakes. But I learned from my dad: You get knocked down, you get up. And, you know, we’re going to win this election. Just like we did in 2020, we’re going to beat Donald Trump.”
Biden’s performance in the first debate raised alarm among some Democrats and supporters as the president struggled to gather his thoughts and counter many of Trump’s false statements. Since then, some of the nation’s major media outlets, two House Democrats and others have called on Biden to drop out of the presidential race and assign another Democrat to take on Trump.
The president argued that voters should focus on his long record of success, rather than being distracted by the debate.
“I didn’t have a good debate. I debated on stage for 90 minutes,” he said. “Think about what I’ve done in three and a half years.”
Biden touted efforts to lower prescription drug prices and expand veterans’ health care, while also criticizing Trump’s record on veterans issues and the black community. The president specifically criticized Trump’s reference to “black jobs” during the debate, a comment that was widely criticized by black leaders.
“You know what he’s doing. It’s disgraceful,” Biden said. “He says the only black jobs are jobs that black people can do, manual labor, menial labor. That’s what he does, that’s how he sees it. List the things he’s done to help the black community, to give people the opportunities that I did, to get college, to get an education, to buy a home.”
“This is the man who questioned the humanity of George Floyd and led the birther crusade against Barack Obama,” Biden continued. “He falsely accused the Central Park Five.”
The president spent much of the interview focusing on the black community, as some of his supporters have expressed concern that Biden may lose out on that voting base, and he made a clear call for them to get out and vote in November.
“The vote of the Black community is crucial,” Biden argued. “Who is going to represent you other than people like me? If you don’t show up to vote, we can’t represent you. That’s important.”
“Your voice needs to be heard. We’ve had a lot of close elections these last few years and every single vote counts. Please understand that,” he continued. “For too long, the Black community, Black Americans, have loved their country as much as the country loved them, and we’ve made incredible progress because of people like you who voted in 2020.”
