Sen. Chris Coons Still Claims He Never Saw Biden Perform So Poorly as He Did in the Debate: ‘I Was Shocked’

BERMAN: “I know you‘re very forward-looking now, senator, and that‘s understandable, but there are books coming out over these few weeks about the Biden presidency and the end of the Biden presidency. There‘s an excerpt from a book from Jonathan Allen and Amie Parnes’ ‘Fighting the Fight: Inside the Wildest Battle for the White House+ that references you and your feelings as you were watching President Biden in the debate. It says, ‘He,’ you, ‘could see what they saw, even if he wouldn‘t say it. ‘This is awful,’ this being you, Senator Coons, ‘thought as the debate hit the halfway mark. ‘Damn, this is really not picking up. The back half wasn‘t as bad,’ he convinced himself, ‘but it was hardly good.’ He knew he would be a lead member of the clean-up crew. And while Democrats peed their pants, peeing their pants was nothing new. They were right that the president had s’d the bed.’ Now, there are some people who‘ve written on this, including Jim Geraghty of the National Review, who say, if you felt that way, maybe you shouldn‘t have criticized Democrats for their reservations about President Biden at the time. Do you wish you had done things differently at this point?”
COONS: “Well, John, obviously, if I had any idea that President Biden was going to perform as poorly as he did at that debate, I would have been advising him differently and advocating differently. That debate performance was the first time I saw anything like that out of President Biden. He had been and was a strong and capable president, and he still had strong public. Performances, interviews, and just the next day went to North Carolina and spoke forcefully at a rally. But I was shocked. I was genuinely surprised by that performance that evening, and was wrestling with what it meant for our path forward.”