Fresh off a debate performance that brought new questions about his age and fitness for the White House, an energetic President Joe Biden sought to reassure a lively group of supporters in North Carolina that he was up for the task of another four years in office.
"I know I'm not a young man, to state the obvious: Folks, I don't walk as easy as I used to. I don’t speak as smoothly as I used to. I don’t debate as well as I used to,” Biden said at a rally in Raleigh on Friday. “But I know what I do know: I know how to tell the truth."
“I know right from wrong and I know how to do this job,” the president continued.
Biden went on to acknowledge the skepticism surrounding his 90 minutes on stage Thursday night, seemingly marking a shift from immediately following the debate, when he told reporters he thought “we did well” less than two hours after it ended.
“When you get knocked down, you get back up,” Biden enthusiastically told the crowd of about 2,000 people.
The incumbent president’s performance in the first general election debate of the 2024 cycle, in which he appeared to be low energy, at times tripped over his words and was hoarse – Biden told reporters after the debate that he had a “sore throat” – sparked fresh questions about his candidacy and headlines about worried Democrats.
The communications director of Biden's campaign told reporters on Friday that he was committed to the second presidential debate, scheduled for Sept. 10 and hosted by ABC News, and that there are "no conversations" about him stepping away from the ticket.
Biden used Friday’s rally, which featured performances from artists Fat Joe and E-40, to make a direct appeal to voters.
“Folks, I give you my word,” Biden started, “I would not be running again if I didn’t believe with all my heart and soul I can do this job.”
“The stakes are too high,” Biden added.
The president also laid into his 2024 rival, former President Donald Trump, debuting a new phrase to describe his predecessor that references his legal woes.
“I thought to myself, Donald Trump isn't just a convicted felon — Donald Trump is a one-man crime wave,” Biden said, noting he has more trials – aside from his New York hush money case in which he was found guilty last month – still on the horizon.
Biden slammed Trump for lying on stage – CNN, the network that hosted the debate, found the former president made at least 30 false claims throughout the night and little was fact checked in real time by the moderators. Reviving his line from Thursday’s face-off that Trump has the “morals of an alley cat,” Biden criticized the former president for lying about his record on the economy, the pandemic and veterans.
But Trump’s “biggest lie,” Biden said, was when he said he “had nothing to do with the insurrection on January the 6th.”
“The choice in this election is simple: Donald Trump will destroy our democracy, I will defend it,” Biden said.
North Carolina Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper and the first lady Jill Biden – sporting a dress with “Vote” printed all over it – joined the president for Friday’s rally.
“The last few years, Joe has helped heal our country, helping us all recover from the chaos of the last administration,” the first lady said.
The Biden team’s choice to send the president to North Carolina the day after the debate is a display of the hope his reelection campaign is putting into the Tar Heel state ahead of November. Trump edged out Biden in North Carolina in 2020 by 1.34 percentage points. Trump won the state in 2016 as well.
“Biden has no chance of winning North Carolina after his weak debate performance last night—and a rally won’t repair the damage done to his flailing campaign on the world stage," RNC Chairman Michael Whatley, who previously chaired the North Carolina Republican Party, said in a statement regarding Biden's post-debate visit to the state.