Jen Psaki Leaves Biden in Limbo After ‘Just OK’ Stephanopoulos Interview: I Don’t Know ‘The Best Path Forward’

PSAKI: “It has now been 10 days since the first presidential debate, and let’s be honest, those 10 days have kind of felt like 10 years in the political world and maybe to all of you out there watching. I mean, the speculation about Joe Biden’s future has been rampant. The panic inside the Democratic Party has definitely not gone away. And I’m going to venture to guess that the conversations you all are having at your Fourth of July barbecue parties this weekend are maybe just a little bit more political than they usually are. I mean, the questions I know I’m getting from text message from friends and family are twofold: what’s going to happen, and what is the best path forward? And I’m not going to sit here this afternoon and tell you I know the answer to either question. I mean, anyone who tells you out there they do know for certain exactly what’s going to happen doesn’t know for certain exactly what’s going to happen. So the best thing I can do is tell you what is happening right now, and I mean publicly, but I also mean my sense of what is happening behind the scenes. What is literally happening right now is President Biden is campaigning in Pennsylvania, key state for him. I mean, just moments ago, and you can see it there, he spoke at a church in Philadelphia. This morning, both of Pennsylvania’s U.S. sitting senators, along with current and former members of the House, greeted the president in what seemed like a real show of solidarity, especially in this moment. It’s also important to note that since the debate, five sitting members of Congress have publicly called on the president to step aside, which is not at all insignificant. At this point, only one of them right now, Minnesota Congresswoman Angie Craig, is from a swing district, which means she is vulnerable and has a vulnerable re-election campaign. And that’s important to know, too. But that list could absolutely get longer after lawmakers return to Washington tomorrow and in the days ahead. Senator Mark Warner is organizing a group of Democratic senators to meet this week to discuss what they believe is Biden’s best path forward. Leader Hakeem Jeffries is holding what sounds like a similar meeting with House Democrats this afternoon.And just yesterday, a current senior White House official, who The New York Times described, importantly, as having worked with Biden during his presidency, vice presidency, and on the 2020 campaign, said that he should not seek re-election. Now, this person wasn’t named, we don’t know who it is, but I can tell you, there aren’t too many people who fit that description. It’s basically an indication that even longtime loyalists may have serious doubts about his path forward. Now, what’s also clear from the reporting is that the president’s family, which is important, including his wife, Dr. Jill Biden, and his son Hunter Biden, want him to stay in the race. What is not clear is, beyond his family and a small group of advisers, how many other people have real influence right now, in this moment? Over the course of the last week, also, you should know, we have seen some polls that show Donald Trump extending his lead over the president after the debate. Some polls do show that. Just this weekend, the Bloomberg poll in seven swing states showed that the gap between Trump and Biden is as narrow as it has been since last October, meaning the race has been pretty — it hasn’t moved much, even despite the debate. So, yes, we are getting a lot of conflicting data points right now. We are consuming it all just like you are. And overall, it’s not an avalanche, at least not yet, in this moment, which is all we can talk about, of elected Democrats calling on the president to step aside. That could change. And there’s not a polling picture in this moment that shows us definitively that the debate was the campaign ender it might have seen like in the moment. On Friday, President Biden also sat down for his first interview since the debate with veteran journalist George Stephanopoulos. I watched it, I watched a lot of these, I prepped him and others for a lot of these. I would say it went just okay for the president. I mean, in many ways, people watching saw what they wanted to see, because for some, he looked better than he did at the debate — he did, he was more clear, he seemed much better prepared to make his case and make the case against Trump, but there were also some moments — and not just one — that did not go well.”

[Clip starts]
STEPHANOPOULOS: “And if you stay in and Trump is elected, and everything you are warning about comes to pass, how will you feel in January?”
Biden: “I will feel, as long as I gave it my all and I did the goodest job I know I can do, that’s what this is about.”
[Clip ends]

PSAKI: “Now, I know and I don’t think that’s what he actually thinks, but that sounded to me like something a member of his family told him over the last week or so, and that in itself is a bit concerning. That was definitely not the answer, let’s be clear, Democrats wanted to hear from the guy running on how Donald Trump poses an existential threat to democracy. That’s the point of this race. He also seemed at moments a little bit in denial about the state of the race, and maybe confidence was a strategy going into this, project confidence about the path forward. But it is also not ideal for people watching and looking for a sign that he recognized the difficulty of the path ahead. I mean, overall, when the interview ended, it left us all in this sort of purgatory for the moment. I mean, it was better than the debate, not a home run it all. And even if it was a home run, one interview definitely doesn’t have the capacity to change the perception out there of 72% of voters, according to the CBS poll, who do not believe that Biden has the mental or cognitive health to serve. Even the White House and the campaign know that. So what’s next? I mean, as I said, tomorrow is going to potentially be a very interesting day in Washington when lawmakers return to Capitol Hill. And then on Thursday, just four days from today, the president is going to have a solo news conference after the NATO summit. That will be another moment where he will have to clear another bar to calm nerves and essentially buy time. All of these interviews and public appearances will be scrutinized and picked apart and dissected. They will be looked at through a lens that is harsh or harsher than most candidates are looked at because of the moment we are facing, and much harsher than the scrutiny of the convicted felon, wannabe dictator he is running against. And while that is happening, while Joe Biden pushes ahead and tries to clear these bars and silence concerns that he might not ever be able to silence, the clock is ticking. That’s just a fact. I mean, the election is less than four months away. The Democratic convention is seven weeks away. If something else is going to happen, if there’s a different path forward, it has to happen soon. And all the while, the threat of Donald Trump is only growing. With all this happening, let’s not forget, the guy who is basically running on abusing power just got a green light from the Supreme Court to abuse power. The stakes of this election have never been higher than they are right now. And when it comes to the path forward, that may be about the only thing the Democrats agree on right now.”