Washington.- President Biden sought to steady his reelection campaign by speaking with two Black radio hosts for interviews that aired Thursday, but he spoke haltingly at times during one interview and struggled to find the right phrase in another, saying he was proud to have been “the first Black woman to serve under a Black president.”
He also stumbled over his words during a four-minute July 4 address to military families at the White House, beginning a story about former President Donald J. Trump by calling him “one of our colleagues, the former president,” and then adding, “I probably shouldn’t say, in any case,” before abruptly ending the story and moving on.
Biden made the gaffe on Philadelphia-based radio station WURD when he tried to utter a line he has repeated before about his pride in having served as President Barack Obama’s vice president. Earlier in the interview, he boasted about appointing the first Black woman to the Supreme Court and choosing the first Black woman as vice president.
The president also made a mistake early in the interview when he claimed to be Delaware’s first statewide president. He seemed to mean he was the state’s first Catholic elected statewide, instead speaking admiringly of John F. Kennedy, a Catholic.
Mr. Biden and his top aides have said the president’s activities in the coming days are part of a series of campaign efforts designed to demonstrate to voters, donors and activists that the president’s debate debacle was nothing more than what he has called “a bad night.”
Biden campaign spokesman Ammar Moussa criticized the media for highlighting the president’s missteps.
“It was clear what President Biden meant when he talked about his historic record, including a record number of appointments to the federal bench,” she said, referring to the president’s comments about being a black woman. “This is not news and the media has gone past the point of absurdity here.”
The president’s every appearance has come under intense scrutiny since he appeared listless and distracted in the debate against former President Donald J. Trump on Thursday, a performance that set off a wave of anxiety among Democrats about whether he is too old to remain the party’s nominee.
The president is scheduled to sit down for an interview with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos on Friday after a campaign rally in Madison, Wisconsin. He is scheduled to attend a campaign stop in Philadelphia on Sunday.
On Thursday, the president used radio interviews to try to allay concerns about the debate among members of the black community. Hosts on both shows praised and thanked Biden after the interviews.
In Biden’s appearance on “The Earl Ingram Show,” which is aimed at black listeners in Wisconsin but also broadcast nationwide, Ingram opened his show by asking the president to “talk about some accomplishments in your record that we may or may not know about.”
Yet even though the interview was conducted under pressure, the president spoke at times haltingly as he gave rapid-fire answers. Asked why it was important to vote, Biden responded by referring to this week’s Supreme Court ruling on Trump’s immunity.
“There needs to be somebody, somebody who will make sure that – the Supreme Court just issued a decision, by the way, that threatens the American principle that in America we have no kings,” he said. “There is no one above the law.”
“That’s where we always — we gave Donald Trump executive power to use a system — and it was just never contemplated by our founders because of the people he appointed to the court,” he said, appearing to stutter several times, a condition he has struggled with since he was a child. “It’s presidential immunity. You can say I did it in my executive capacity, it may have been wrong, but I did it. But that’s going to stand, because I — and this is the same guy who says he wants revenge.”
The president’s responses to Ingram’s four questions were lengthy, as he limited himself to listing his accomplishments in office and criticizing Trump. But in the 17-minute interview, he sometimes paused in the middle of an answer.
In his answer about the importance of voting, he began to talk about Trump’s proposal to raise tariffs on all Chinese goods imported into the United States. He stopped mid-answer, apologizing for going on too long.
“He wants a 10% tariff on everything imported into the United States,” he said, “which the experts say is going to raise taxes on the average American by $2,500, raise taxes while giving a $5 trillion tax cut next time for everyone who earns – anyway, I just, I don’t want to get too wrapped up in it, really.”
Mr. Biden also refrained from using an epithet to describe Mr. Trump during a response in which he spoke of his son Beau, who died of brain cancer after serving for a year in Iraq. Mr. Biden has blamed his death on his proximity to so-called burn pits, where waste was disposed of.
“He was a very healthy man, he came back with stage 4 glioblastoma – there were more brain injuries in that war than any other – and he died,” Biden said. “I’ll be damned if I’m going to let this SO – sorry – this president, talk about veterans the way he talked.”
At the end of the interview with Ingram, the president again acknowledged his poor performance in the debate.
“The fact is, you know, it was… I screwed up,” he said. “I made a mistake.”
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