White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Wednesday that President Joe Biden is still battling a cold, 18 days after he originally contracted it on his international trip.
But, surprisingly, despite having had a disastrous debate against Donald Trump, which his aides attributed in part to his common illness, he has still not been examined by the doctor.
“He still has a lingering cold,” he told DailyMail.com when asked about Biden’s health.
The White House has offered multiple and varied explanations for Biden’s terrible performance in the debate, where he was speechless when answering questions and aimlessly changed the subject: a bad cold, too much debate preparation and not feeling very well.
Biden himself added a new excuse to the mix when he attributed his performance to jet lag from his international trip. But the president had returned to the country 12 days before the debate began and Jean-Pierre had not mentioned jet lag when he spoke to reporters on Tuesday.
“It was my fault. I knew it,” she insisted when asked about jet lag. “I was concentrating on the cold.”
Jean-Pierre was questioned about Biden’s debate performance for most of his hour-long news conference on Wednesday.
“It’s jet lag and also the cold,” he said of the matter.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Wednesday that President Joe Biden still has a cold.
He also said the octogenarian president has not had a medical exam since his annual physical in February.
Biden’s physician, Dr. Kevin O’Connor, is traveling with him. He was seen by reporters at the president’s villa in Italy. O’Connor also traveled with Biden to the debate in Atlanta.
But Biden, 81, “was not examined by the doctor” on the way to the debate, Jean-Pierre said.
“He’s got a cold and he’s got jet lag. Put all that together and he’s still working for the American people day in and day out, 24 hours a day. Things happen,” she said of Biden’s debate performance.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website, a cold is a viral infection of the upper respiratory tract. It usually lasts less than a week.
Biden returned from attending the G7 in Italy on June 14. Before that, he had been in France for the anniversary of D-Day. The debate was held on June 27.
“The fact is, as you know, I wasn’t very smart. I decided to travel around the world a couple of times, crossing about 100 time zones… before… the debate. I didn’t listen to my staff and I came back and almost fell asleep on stage,” Biden said Tuesday night of his debate performance. “That’s not an excuse, but it’s an explanation.”
But he did not mention the seven days he spent at Camp David before his showdown with Trump. He spent the week holed up with his advisers preparing for the debate.
However, Biden rarely started before 11 a.m. and would pause in the afternoon for a nap, the New York Times reported.
Jean-Pierre criticized the nap report.
“I want to be very clear about this: This is a president who wakes up every morning and puts Americans first… I’m not going to talk to… anonymous sources,” she said.
And, he argued, Biden should be praised for moving forward with the debate while sick.
Jean-Pierre also denied a report that Biden privately told a key ally that he is considering whether to drop out of the presidential race, a shocking admission that points to the sorry state of his candidacy.
Biden, coming off his disastrous performance in last week’s debate, acknowledged that he only has this weekend left to convince voters that he is mentally prepared for the job.
On Friday he will be in Madison, Wisconsin, where he will give an interview to ABC News. On Sunday he will travel to Pennsylvania.
“He knows that if there are two more events like that, we’ll be in a different place” at the end of the weekend, the ally told The New York Times.
Jean-Pierre called the report “absolutely false.”
“He has a clear vision and stays in the race,” he said.
Biden himself called a campaign staff meeting on Wednesday to give them a pep talk and tell them he will stay in the race and win.
“Let me say this as clearly as possible, as simply and directly as I can: I’m running… nobody is pushing me to leave. I’m not leaving. I’m in this race to the end and we’re going to win,” he said.
President Joe Biden also blamed jet lag for his poor performance in the debate
Biden’s physician, Dr. Kevin O’Connor, has not examined him recently, the White House said.
If Biden drops out of the race with Donald Trump, Vice President Kamala Harris would be the front-runner to replace him. Biden and Harris had lunch at the White House on Wednesday.
Democrats fear Biden may no longer be able to beat Trump in November. Even Biden’s staff has needed reassurance, as more than 25 lawmakers have expressed doubts about the president’s eligibility.
Reports that Biden is thinking about leaving are mounting as donors, lawmakers and senior party officials fear the president is unprepared for the campaign. There is also frustration that Biden is waiting too long to re-emerge and present himself as a strong, forceful leader.
“He was busy fulfilling his agenda and also speaking directly, interacting with his supporters and spending time with his family,” Jean-Pierre said of the president’s schedule.
A major donor said TMZ that “it’s only a matter of time” before Biden steps down.
Another ally told CNN that Biden understands the next few days are critical to determining whether he can salvage his candidacy, and noted what he would have to accept: “It’s just not working.”
“He sees the moment. He has a clear vision,” the person said.
“As for what it would take, polls are plummeting, fundraising is drying up and interviews are going poorly,” the person said. “He’s no stranger to this.”
The White House is struggling to calm the storm of outrage over Biden’s debate performance, with Democratic lawmakers calling for the president to drop out of the race and White House staff “freaking out.”
White House Chief of Staff Jeff Zients held an all-staff meeting at 12:30 p.m. Wednesday to encourage disillusioned staff and assure them that Biden will remain the nominee.
On the call, she acknowledged that Biden did not have a great debate performance last week, but told staff he is a “great president” and urged them to “stick together.”
“He didn’t have a great night, but it was a great night and what we all know is that he’s a great president,” Zients reportedly said.
He laid out three key points: keep your head down and continue working for the American people as the campaign takes over the election; keep your head up because the administration has accomplished a lot; and stay united.
The call lasted about 10 minutes. Zients did not take questions but said interested staff should email him. He repeated Biden’s quote that when you get knocked down, you get back up.
“That’s what he’s doing and that’s what we all need to do… follow the president’s lead,” he said.
