Reviews came in almost immediately after President Joe Biden’s televised interview with left-leaning pundit George Stephanopoulos, and they were mixed.
The high-stakes televised interview came roughly one week after the president’s dismal showing in a debate against former President Donald Trump. Amid a growing chorus of Democratic voices calling on him to step aside to allow another candidate to emerge, Biden tried to recover from his debate appearance.
At first glance, it appears he was unable to achieve that aim.
Here’s some of what Fox News reported on the interview and the reaction to it:
The ABC News panel had some choice words for President Biden following his primetime interview with anchor George Stephanopoulos Friday.
“Look, Biden looked better and certainly more coherent than he looked during the debate, but there’s nothing in this interview that is calming nerves of jittery Democrats who fear that Joe Biden is on a trajectory to lose this race, to lose to Donald Trump,” ABC News chief Washington correspondent Jonathan Karl told Stephanopoulos after the interview.
“In fact, for some of those people, the interview is raising new concerns, particularly the fact that he is unwilling or unaware of the fact that he is in a dire situation here regarding the campaign, that he is losing, in the view of many Democrats and frankly in the polls you cited, that he is losing to Donald Trump,” he said.
Karl added it was “alarming” when Biden said he would be content with a hypothetical defeat against former President Trump as long as he as he “gave it [his] all,” telling Stephanopoulos that a Biden ally reacted to him with a “wow.”
“The bottom line here: there was nothing in this interview that will force Joe Biden out of the race… but there’s also nothing in this interview that will calm the nerves of Democrats who are saying it’s time for him to get out,” Karl added.