President Joe Biden said in an interview with ABC News on Friday that he realized he performed poorly in last week’s presidential debate because he noticed that his 2024 Republican presidential opponent, former President Donald Trump, “had his microphone off and was still yelling while I was answering questions. And that distracted me.” Biden elaborated that while he wasn’t blaming it for his performance, it made him realize that “I wasn’t in control.”
ABC host George Stephanopoulos asked, “How quickly did you realize that that night was a bad one?”
Biden responded: “When I realized he was still yelling, even though the microphone was off, as I was answering a question, I realized I had been having a bad night. And I got distracted by that. I’m not blaming him for that. I just realized I just wasn’t in control.”
Elsewhere in the interview, Biden cited illness, fatigue, not following his instincts about preparation and fatigue from his first term in office as reasons for his poor debate performance, and said he took full responsibility for the poor night.
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