As Biden, 81, seeks to address growing concerns about his mental health in a primetime ABC interview Friday night, he will need to reassure Democratic and moderate voters that he is fit to remain commander in chief for another four years.
Here are three things President Biden must do in his highly anticipated interview with George Stephanopoulos, according to political strategists.
1. Clarity of mental acuity
Biden will undoubtedly need to speak out “strongly” and clearly to allay concerns that he is unfit to serve in the presidency. Democratic strategist Mustafa Rashed said the primary goal of the interview is to show voters that Biden’s poor performance in the debate with former President Trump was “temporary” and “not indicative of where he is now.”
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President Biden (left) is scheduled to appear in a pre-recorded interview with ABC News anchor George Stephanopoulos on Friday. (Getty Images)
“It’s not about the issues,” Rashed, president and CEO of Philadelphia-based government-backed firm Bellevue Strategies, said in an interview on Fox News Digital.
“This is truly a referendum on the president and his ability to perform his job.”
Rashed continued that “little things” go a long way, adding that Biden needs to clear a “very high bar” and speak clearly after being criticized for his raspy voice during the debate.
“He may be fudged on policy questions because they’re a way to get him to talk about subjects he knows a lot about, but what we’re looking at is the quality of the answer and how he answers it — not necessarily what he answers, but how he answers it,” Rashed said.
“It’s moderate voters who are questioning it,” Rashed continued, “and not Republicans. They already know how they feel about this president. He’s trying to win over independents and convince Democrats that he’s the best person for the job.”
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Democrats and liberal media pundits are dismissing polls showing former President Trump (left) gaining popularity among black voters. (Photo by Bill Pugliano/Getty Images | Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
2. Win back support from disengaged Democrats
Several Democratic lawmakers have already called on Biden to retire, and others have expressed concerns about his age, making regaining their trust crucial ahead of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) convention.
“There could be a rebellion within the Democratic Party and Trump needs to get his party members to say, ‘OK, yeah, let’s keep him in the party. We’d rather have this guy as leader than have to start the leadership contest again and have a mess with no procedural clarity about what happens next,'” presidential historian Tebi Troy told Fox News Digital.
Troye, a former top Health and Human Services official in the George W. Bush administration, said keeping Biden on the ballot “would be better for the DNC than having an unvetted candidate take office or the other option being the unpopular Kamala Harris.”
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“It’s not that easy to find someone to replace him, so you have to reassure the Democratic base. And thirdly, you have to reassure the broader electorate,” he said. “You have to get those centrist voters who say, ‘I don’t like Trump, but I want someone who can stand up to Putin and Xi Jinping without sleeping or getting weak.'”
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Several Democratic lawmakers have already called on President Biden to retire. (Screenshot of Joe Biden from MSNBC)
3. Economy
With everyday Americans feeling the effects of inflation on their wallets, President Biden must articulate his plan to bolster the economy, especially among voters in battleground states.
“In our quarterly polling, the No. 1 issue is consistently, overwhelmingly, inflation and the economy,” Nathan Benefield, senior vice president at the Commonwealth Foundation, a Pennsylvania-based think tank, told Fox News Digital.
“If you look at the numbers, wages over the last three years have not kept up with prices and Pennsylvania families are literally poorer than they were three years ago,” Benefield said. “And that’s weighing on them. Rather than shifting the blame or ignoring the problem entirely, I think the president needs to address the issue, acknowledge the cost, acknowledge the role of government and talk about solutions to inflation from that perspective.”
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Benefield suggested that people are experiencing inflation everywhere., At the grocery store, where food prices have gone up, at the gas station, where people are eating out less due to increased costs, and especially at housing, where interest rates and prices have increased.
“So, you really [inflation] That’s true across the board,” he said.
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