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PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: ...Making sure that we're able to make every single solitary person eligible for what I've been able to do with the COVID - excuse me, with dealing with everything we have to do with - look, if - we finally beat Medicare.
MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
On June 27, long-simmering concerns about President Biden's age and whether he is fit to serve a second term - they exploded.
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NANCY PELOSI: I think it's a legitimate question to say, is this an episode, or is this a condition?
SANJAY GUPTA: If he were my patient, if he were my dad, frankly, I would want to get more testing done.
LOUISE KELLY: Some 24 hours later, Biden tried to put those questions to rest at a campaign rally in Raleigh, N.C.
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BIDEN: 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. But I know what I do know. I know how to tell the truth.
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LOUISE KELLY: But concerns persisted. A week later, Biden used a sit-down interview with ABC News' George Stephanopoulos to try to staunch concerns, saying that the debate was a bad night. And when Stephanopols asked how the president would feel if Donald Trump were reelected in November, Biden said this.
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BIDEN: I feel as long as I gave it my all, and I did the goodest job as I know I can do, that's what this is about.
LOUISE KELLY: The interview did not accomplish the goal of shoring up support. And now the president's support within his own party is weakening, including among some top Democrats in Congress who are calling for the president to drop out of the race. CONSIDER THIS - President Biden is fighting to hang on to the Democratic nomination. Will he?
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LOUISE KELLY: From NPR, I'm Mary Louise Kelly.
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LOUISE KELLY: It's CONSIDER THIS FROM NPR. Quote, "It is time to come together, move forward as a unified party and defeat Donald Trump." Those are the words of President Biden in a letter he sent Monday to Congressional Democrats. Over the weekend, more Democratic lawmakers privately called on Biden to step aside - let someone else be the party's presidential nominee. Biden's response - nope, I am staying in this race. Well, here to talk with us about the Biden campaign at a crossroads is Evan Osnos. He's a staff writer for The New Yorker and the author of a biography of Joe Biden. Hey, Evan.
EVAN OSNOS: Thanks, Mary Louise. Glad to join you.
LOUISE KELLY: Start there with that growing friction we're seeing between President Biden and fellow Democrats in Congress. I will note that on Sunday, four more House Democrats, all leaders on key committees, told colleagues that Biden should step down. Here is how Biden answered that call. This was him today on MSNBC's "Morning Joe."
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BIDEN: I am not going anywhere. I wouldn't be running if I didn't absolutely believe that I am the best candidate to beat Donald Trump in 2024.
LOUISE KELLY: Evan Osnos, what should we make of this moment in which we find ourselves?
OSNOS: You know, this is a day in which he's come out punching, actually, after about a week or 10 days of being very much on the back foot when it felt as if there was this strong chorus of voices both in the press and then also increasingly from some members of his party calling for him to step aside. He came back pretty definitively, both in that appearance on "Morning Joe" and also in a letter to Congress in which he didn't equivocate much at all. He said, I am in this. And I think, importantly, what he said is that the voters in the primary put me here, and I am going to fulfill that commitment.
LOUISE KELLY: That's interesting. I was noting some of the words he was using in that "Morning Joe" interview today. He said, elites are trying to get me out. And I was curious about that choice of language.
OSNOS: Yeah. It's a pretty resonant concept for him. This is something I think you're going to hear more of from him, which is, you know, he's positioning himself as the person that the voters installed. And when he talks about elites, what he's saying is that the pundits, the reporters, the people, as he would put it, who think that they know better, which is the phrase that he used today, are trying to push him out. And this is a theme that is very much a part of his history. You know, he has never been, in his own mind, a real insider in politics.
LOUISE KELLY: No, he's Scranton Joe.
OSNOS: Exactly. And that's a big piece of how he sees it.
LOUISE KELLY: Like a lot of Americans, we, I'm sure, both watched the interview with George Stephanopoulos on ABC. President Biden was pushed on his debate performance. He wrote it off as a bad night. I want to put to you, Evan, a question that you pose in your latest piece on the president. At what point does political conviction curdle into something closer to denial? Do you have an answer to that?
OSNOS: Well, running a campaign and being a candidate really requires a level of projection of self-narrative. You have to be able to tell yourself that you can and should and will be president. And yet, at the same time, there comes a point at which the data, the cold, hard science of the election, may tell you something else.
LOUISE KELLY: Are you talking about polls? I mean, what is the cold, hard science of this?
OSNOS: Well, to give you one data point right now, there has never been a president in recent memory with approval ratings as low as his who has gone on to win reelection. That's a fact that is very hard to explain away. His personal view and the view of the advisers very close to him is that that approval rating doesn't reflect the full reality. They are genuinely doubtful about the quality of polling now. And people can argue with that, but I'm just trying to tell you their view.
And then they also believe that as the campaign goes on, people will become more supportive of him as they realize what they don't like and remember what they don't like about Donald Trump. The problem is that that theory, which was the one they expressed to me back in January, remains their theory of the case and, in some ways, has not accommodated, as far as we can see, to the surge of concern around his performance in the debate, which was, in its own way, indelible.
LOUISE KELLY: I'm curious, Evan Osnos, just what you are seeing as someone who has sat down one-on-one with Biden. I was going back and looking at what you wrote after you interviewed him in January. And of that interview, you said, his mind seemed unchanged. He never bungled a name or a date. From what you can glimpse, is the Biden you sat down with six months ago - six, seven months ago - a different Biden from the one we just saw on that debate stage?
OSNOS: The one we saw on the debate stage was completely different than the Biden I saw in January. You know, the person I saw in January was much more like that Biden we saw at the State of the Union...
LOUISE KELLY: Yeah.
OSNOS: ...Who was, no question, 81 years old but fiery and pretty much able to accomplish the political task of the moment. And that's not what we saw on the debate stage. And so the question really becomes - I think Nancy Pelosi put it best - was this an episode that we saw on that debate stage, or is it a condition? And I think what we know at the moment is that there are moments when he rises and falls. And the person that we are now going to need to see as an electorate and as a student of these questions is, does Biden have the capacity to come back and demonstrate a consistent ability to meet the expectations, the challenges, pressures of the moment?
LOUISE KELLY: What kind of window does Biden have as he navigates this huge decision? I will point out there's a NATO summit happening in D.C. this week. Does that alter the calculation in any way?
OSNOS: It does factor in because I think that some members of Congress are going to be inclined to say, let's take a deep breath for a second. Let's not necessarily have our big family feud right in front of all the allies because our allies are seeking reassurance of the stability of American leadership. So that may add one more beat to the process. I think there's also a genuine effort here to try to get a clearer sense of where Congress is on this. There are some members of Congress who have come out in support of him, and some, of course, who have come out opposed to him. And short of an actual vote, the real challenge is to try to fashion some sense of consensus, and that is a hard thing to measure. And it could hardly be more important than trying to get it on this question.
LOUISE KELLY: Evan Osnos, staff writer for The New Yorker and author of a biography of Joe Biden. Evan Osnos, what a moment. Thank you.
OSNOS: My pleasure. Thanks for having me.
LOUISE KELLY: This episode was produced by Kathryn Fink. It was edited by Courtney Dorning. Our executive producer is Sami Yenigun. And one more thing before we go. You can now enjoy the CONSIDER THIS newsletter. We still help you break down a major story of the day, but you'll also get to know our producers and our hosts and some moments of joy from the All Things Considered team. You can sign up at npr.org/considerthisnewsletter.
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LOUISE KELLY: It's CONSIDER THIS FROM NPR. I'm Mary Louise Kelly.
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