Former White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said President Biden’s post-debate interview with ABC News’s George Stephanopoulos did not do him any favors.
"We are getting a lot of conflicting data points right now. We are consuming it all just like you are. And overall, it’s not an avalanche, at least not yet, in this moment, which is all we can talk about, of elected Democrats calling on the president to step aside," she told her MSNBC viewers.
"That could change," she continued. "And there’s not a polling picture in this moment that shows us definitively that the debate was the campaign ender it might have seen like in the moment. On Friday, President Biden also sat down for his first interview since the debate with veteran journalist George Stephanopoulos. I watched it, I watched a lot of these, I prepped him and others for a lot of these. I would say it went just OK for the president. I mean, in many ways, people watching saw what they wanted to see, because for some, he looked better than he did at the debate — he did, he was more clear, he seemed much better prepared to make his case and make the case against Trump, but there were also some moments — and not just one — that did not go well."
She then played a clip of this exchange between Biden and Stephanopoulos:
Biden: Democracy itself is on the ballot and if Trump wins America is literally over!
— Geiger Capital (@Geiger_Capital) July 6, 2024
Also Biden: “If Trump wins in November, I'll feel as long as I gave it my all and did the goodest job I know I could do, that's what it’s all about.” pic.twitter.com/wfKT5nliCX
Psaki continued, “Overall, when the interview ended, it left us all in this sort of purgatory for the moment. It was better than the debate, not a home run at all. And even if it was a homerun, one interview definitely doesn’t have the capacity to change the perception out there of 72 percent of voters…who do not believe that Biden has the mental or cognitive health to serve, and even the White House and campaign know that.”
