Biden ignores calls to retire: “I don't debate as well as I used to, but I know how to do this job” | American elections

Joe Biden is ready to rise. Before a devoted audience, the President of the United States demonstrated his determination to continue running for re-election regardless the calls for reconsideration after his disastrous performance in Thursday's debate against Republican Donald Trump. Biden appeared again this Friday at a rally in Raleigh (North Carolina), a state where he lost to Trump in 2020, but not by an outsized margin. “I'm here because I want to win the election in November and if we win in North Carolina, we win the election,” he said, trying to strike an energetic tone. “I know I'm not a young man, to state the obvious,” he admitted. “I don't speak as fluently as I used to. I don't debate as well as I used to. But I know what I know: I know how to tell the truth, I know how to do this job, I know how to get things done.”

“It's hard to argue with a liar,” he had justified himself the day before. Even more than his problems in refuting the lies of Trump, who emerged victorious from the debate with his apocalyptic and demagogic messages, his problem was that It foundered in a tidal wave of errors, hesitations and incomplete sentences. He coughed often, his voice trembled and he could not shake a certain hoarseness during the debate, apparently due to a cold. This Friday he was in apparently better shape, although he was still coughing a bit.

In between shouts of “four more years” from his followers and the speech being read on the screen, he attacked Trump hard. He has assured Trump “broke the record for lies in a debate” and he has reiterated that his rival, as he told him to his face on Thursday, has “the morals of a stray cat.”

“Lock him up.”

The crowd was devoted. “The only convicted criminal on stage yesterday was Donald Trump,” he added, as the crowd chanted, “Lock him up!”, a rallying cry from Trumpists as they called for Hillary Clinton to be put in jail.

Biden again cast his predecessor as a threat to democracy, the economy and the future of the country, some of his usual arguments. His intervention was brief and direct, far more effective than his performance in Thursday's debate. “The choice in this election is simple: Donald Trump will destroy our democracy. 'I will defend it,'” he said.

The first lady, Jill Biden, who some are calling on to convince her husband to throw in the towel, also took part in the rally, wearing a black dress with white letters reading: “Vote.” He has assured that he is the most suitable person for the position “at this time”. “What you saw in the debate yesterday is his integrity and character. He told the truth, while Trump said so lie after lie after liehe said minutes before the president arrived on the scene.

Biden's campaign billed the Raleigh event as the largest rally of his re-election bid in the state that Trump won by the narrowest margin in 2020. He will then travel to New York for a weekend of fundraising that your campaign needs now more than ever.

The Biden campaign announced it had raised $14 million (€13 million) on the day of the debate and the morning after, while Trump's campaign said it had raised more than $8 million from the start of the debate through the end of the evening.

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