The Stephanopoulos Interview: Not Great, Not Terrible
Published at 20:22 on 5 July 2024
The good news is that Biden wasn’t totally out of it like he was at the debate last week. The bad news for Biden is that he needed to really hit it out of the park, and he didn’t. He still came off sounding like an old man.
Some were worried that Stephanopoulos would only ask softball questions. He didn’t. He asked numerous pointed questions and was quite persistent when Biden evaded answering them forthrightly.
Of particular note is that Biden admitted that he has not yet watched his debate performance. It as if deep inside, he knows the uncomfortable truth of how much he has aged, how this affects his fitness for the office, and that he does not want to face it.
It was not a live interview, which limits how convincing it can be. It is difficult to definitively refute accusations that some senior moments ended up on the cutting-room floor, although I suspect they did not, for the simple reason that Stephanopoulos has a stake in this: he is a lifelong Democrat, and has reason to be concerned about Biden’s electability. This is probably why he was also not shy about asking his interviewee pointed questions.
P.S. The more I think about it, the more that Biden has been unwilling to watch his own debate performance is revealing, and not in a good way. It means he has serious mental hangups about assessing his own competence. That is not something we want to see in a president.