While the White House comms team was insisting that President Biden’s shocking performance during the CNN debate was due to a head cold, the president was telling donors that it was due to jet lag.
The president attended a campaign fundraiser in Virginia on July 2 where he claimed that his poor debate performance was due to all of the international travel he did earlier in the month.
Biden explained that he “traveled around the world a couple of times,” referring to his visit to France in early June and the G7 summit in Italy in mid-June.
However, Biden returned to Washington on June 16, 11 days before the June 27 debate.
The president said he didn’t listen to his staff and claimed that he “came back” from all of that travel and “nearly fell asleep” on the debate stage 11 days later.
Biden spent the week before the debate resting at Camp David and doing debate prep.
The president apologized to donors for his debate performance but insisted that he was up to the job. He told them that the jet lag was “not an excuse but an explanation” and boasted that the campaign raised millions following the June 27 debate.
When asked about the president’s latest excuse for his poor performance during a press briefing the following day, Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre reiterated Biden’s comment, saying that it was not an “excuse” but an “explanation.”
Nervous Democrat governors demanded a meeting with the president over their concerns about his health.
During the July 3 meeting at the White House, the president admitted that he needed more rest and had to work fewer hours, explaining that he had to curtail holding public events after 8:00 p.m.
Earlier in the week, senior Biden campaign officials held a conference call with donors and Democrat fundraisers to quell concerns over the president’s health, with Biden campaign chair Jennifer O’Malley Dillon assuring them that the president was “fit for duty” and “probably in better health than most of us.”
