After Joe Biden’s weak performance in the TV debate with Donald Trump, criticism of the US president is mounting. All information in the news blog.
7.14 am: US President Joe Biden is behind challenger Donald Trump in several key states, according to polls. But the gap between the two is narrowing. In a Bloomberg News and Morning Consult poll conducted in the first week of July, 47 percent of respondents said they supported Trump and 45 percent said they supported Biden. The two percent gap is the smallest gap between the two since October 2023.
The results refer to the average values of the so-called swing states Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Swing states are those states that do not clearly lean towards one party and are therefore particularly important for the election outcome.
Looking at the individual states, the race looks like this: In Michigan, Biden is currently 5 percentage points ahead of Trump (48 to 43 percent), in Wisconsin by three points (47 to 44 percent). In Georgia, however, Trump is one percentage point ahead of Biden (47 to 46 percent), in Nevada, Arizona and North Carolina by 3 points each, and in Pennsylvania by as much as 7 percentage points (51 to 44 percent).
1.10 am: Democrats in Congress will hold an emergency meeting on Sunday to discuss Joe Biden’s faltering presidential candidacy, several US media outlets report. Hakeem Jeffries, the leader of the Democratic caucus in the House of Representatives, has scheduled the virtual meeting with the members of the committee for Sunday. Previously, several MPs and senators had criticized Biden’s recent TV appearances.
0.03 am: Joe Biden’s personal physician is said to have met with one of the leading US neurologists at the White House. According to White House visitor logs viewed by the New York Post, Dr. Kevin Cannard, an expert in Parkinson’s disease at Walter Reed Medical Center in Washington, met with Dr. Kevin O’Connor, the doctor who has been treating the president for years. Cannard is said to have been to the White House a total of eight times. Read more about the latest concerns about the US president’s mental health here.
4.10 am: According to CNN, Democratic Representative Mike Quigley of Illinois said of Joe Biden’s ABC interview that now is not the time for “cheerleading.” Two of the most disturbing moments, according to Quigley, were when Biden said he hadn’t seen the debate and all that really mattered was that he was doing his best to win the election.
“With all due respect, no, all that really matters is avoiding a second Trump presidency,” Quigley told CNN’s Jim Sciutto. Responding to Senator John Fetterman’s accusation that the Democratic Party needed to “show backbone” and support Biden, Quigley said that would be a “recipe for disaster”: “What we need now – and I think it takes backbone – is to step aside and recognize that the president of the United States does not have the strength necessary to overcome the deficit, and that will affect all of us,” Quigley said.
0.55 am: In an interview with US broadcaster ABC, US President Joe Biden admitted that he was not fit for the TV debate with Donald Trump. “I was exhausted. I didn’t trust my instincts when it came to preparing,” Biden said in a video clip that was released in advance. He was sick and felt terrible as he prepared for the debate at Camp David. When asked whether he watched the debate again later, Biden gave a rather confused answer: “I don’t think so.”