Speaking during a Monday, July 15, interview with “NBC Nightly News” host Lester Holt, President Joe Biden refused to agree to do a third presidential debate with former President Donald Trump, telling Mr. Holt that he has no intention of going beyond the second 2024 presidential debate that is already scheduled for September.
President Biden said, justifying to Holt his refusal to agree to a third presidential debate that might allow him to “redeem himself” that he is “going out and demonstrating to the American people that I have command of all my faculties, that I don’t need notes, I don’t need a [teleprompter], I can go out and answer any questions at all.”
Holt broached the question about the thrid debate during the wide-ranging interview with the current president, one that seemed meant to help Biden rebuild his image in the wake of his awful first debate with former President Trump. Holt said, “Mr. Trump has said he is giving you a chance to redeem yourself, basically the idea of engaging in another debate.” Biden said that they already have a second one scheduled for September.
Pressing President Biden more specifically on whether he would have any interest or willingness in doing another debate, in addition to the Septemeber one, that would occur before them, sometime in the next few weeks, likely before or around the time of the Democratic National Convention. Doing so, Holt asked, “Would you be open to doing one in the next few weeks?”
President Biden refused, framing his refusal to do so as his simply desiring to do the debates that the two presidential candidates had already agreed to, which was a debate on June 27, and then another in September. Biden said, “I’m going to debate him when we agreed to debate. And I’m going to debate him in September.”
Holt, to his credit, didn’t let the matter go, saying that there could be an opportunity for them to do another debate and implying that Biden should want to “get back on the horse” and try to do much better than during his abysmally bad first debate. Holt said, making that argument via a question, “But if the opportunity came up to do one between now and then? Is there a sense of wanting to get back on the horse?”
Biden somewhat angrily responded, snapping that he has been “on the horse” and doing events. He said, making that argument, that he has been doing many events with crowds, saying, “I’m on the horse. Where have you been? I’ve done 22 major events, had thousands of people, overwhelming crowds, a lot’s happening. I’m on the horse.”
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He then argued that he’s showing the American people how much he has it together, saying, “What I’m doing is going out and demonstrating to the American people that I have command of all my faculties, that I don’t need notes, I don’t need a [teleprompter], I can go out and answer any questions at all. And I stood there, when NATO was in town, I stood there for an hour and answered questions.”
Watch him here:
And watch the “lowlights” of Biden’s terrible first debate here: