The 22 must-see lines from Joe Biden's ABC interview

Inside the transcript

President Joe Biden spent roughly 22 minutes talking to ABC’s George Stephanopoulos on Friday night in what was a transparent attempt to buy some time amid calls from within his party to drop his 2024 candidacy.

I offered my initial thoughts on how Biden did here. But I wanted to go through the full transcript of the interview — helpfully provided by ABC! — in order to really dig into how Biden performed.

My big takeaway: Biden was not great! In fact, the transcript reads worse than I felt Biden did watching it. He comes across as deeply out of touch with his present political circumstances and utterly resistant to the idea that the best thing for his party might be him not on the ballot this fall.

I went through the transcript line by line so you can see what Biden said for yourself. It’s below.

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1. “It was a bad episode. No indication of any serious condition. I was exhausted. I didn't listen to my instincts in terms of preparing and-- and a bad night.”

I have a few issues with Biden’s attempt here to dismiss the debate as simply a “bad night.” First, the White House has said he has not undergone any recent cognitive testing. So, how does Biden know there is “no indication of any serious condition”? Second, the “I was exhausted” thing doesn’t really work for me. Biden got back from Europe on June 15. The debate was June 27. He spent an entire WEEK at Camp David getting ready for the debate. How could he be exhausted from that? And away we go!

2. “I was feeling terrible. Matter of fact, the docs with me. I asked if they did a COVID test because they’re trying to figure out what was wrong. They did a test to see whether or not I had some infection, you know, a virus. I didn't. I just had a really bad cold.”

Ok, so Biden was sick. That’s why he was bad in the debate. I guess I can see that. But, like, couldn’t he have taken cold medicine? Also, the I-was-sick excuse is less credible because the president and his team have also said that he was jet-lagged, his makeup was bad, he wasn’t properly prepared for the debate by his top aides and a few other reasons for why he didn’t perform. So, which one is it?

3. “I don't think I did, no.”

The question from Stephanopoulos was whether Biden watched the debate afterward. Which seems like a “yes” or “no” question, right? “I don’t think I did,” is a very weird way to answer — especially when the whole point of this interview was to prove to the public that Biden is totally with it and coherent. Also: Shouldn’t he have watched the debate to see what went wrong and how he can fix it in the next one?

4. “The whole way I prepared, nobody's fault, mine. Nobody's fault but mine.”

Good on Biden here. The debate was his fault. Not his staff’s fault. Owning up to that fact is the right thing to do. (And, by the way, something Donald Trump would never do.)

5. “And I realized--bout partway through that, you know, all-- I get quoted the New York Times had me down, at ten points before the debate, nine now, or whatever the hell it is. The fact of the matter is, what I looked at is that he also lied 28 times.”