Former President Donald Trump has revealed what he immediately noticed when he saw President Joe Biden on the CNN stage in Atlanta for their first debate late last month in an interview with Fox News’s Sean Hannity.
“They introduced him, and they introduced me, and I walked out and saw him, and he looked extremely pale, to put it nicely,” Trump told Hannity by phone. “And I don’t know, maybe it was a good make-up job, maybe it wasn’t, but he was a very pale-looking man.”
WATCH:
Trump says Biden looked super pale on debate night pic.twitter.com/lpaCYRDNLR
— ForAmerica (@ForAmerica) July 9, 2024
Biden’s debate performance was horrible, most observers agree, and that has led to panicked calls from Democrats for him to drop out of the race. But on Monday, Biden sent a letter to Democratic leaders informing him that he has no intention of leaving the race, a decision that first lady Jill Biden reiterated at a campaign rally.
“Joe has made it clear he is all in,” she told a crowd in North Carolina. “That’s the decision he’s made. And just as he has always supported my career, I am all in too.”
The letter chastised Democratic legislators who had urged Biden to pull out after his poor debating performance against former President Trump. Biden asked Democrats to let go of the matter and push forward unitedly.
“This morning, I sent a letter to my fellow Democrats on Capitol Hill. In it, I shared my thoughts about this moment in our campaign. It’s time to come together, move forward as a unified party, and defeat Donald Trump,” Biden wrote.
He added that he “declined” to step aside and argued it was time for the party drama “to end.”
“Now that you have returned from the July 4th recess, I want you to know that despite all the speculation in the press and elsewhere, I am firmly committed to staying in this race, to running this race to the end, and to beating Donald Trump,” Biden wrote. “I have had extensive conversations with the leadership of the party, elected officials, rank and file members, and most importantly, Democratic voters over these past 10 days or so. I have heard the concerns that people have – their good faith fears and worries about what is at stake in this election. I am not blind to them.”
“I can respond to all this by saying clearly and unequivocally: I wouldn’t be running again if I did not absolutely believe I was the best person to beat Donald Trump in 2024. We had a Democratic nomination process and the voters have spoken clearly and decisively,” the letter added.
Biden continued: “I received over 14 million votes, 87% of the votes cast across the entire nominating process. I have nearly 3,900 delegates, making me the presumptive nominee of our party by a wide margin. This was a process open to anyone who wanted to run. Only three people chose to challenge me. One fared so badly that he left the primaries to run as an independent. Another attacked me for being too old and was soundly defeated. The voters of the Democratic Party have voted. They have chosen me to be the nominee of the party.”
“Do we now just say this process didn’t matter? That the voters don’t have a say?” Biden asked.
Biden followed up that letter with a Monday morning appearance on MSNBC, where he warned Democrats against trying to force his hand.
“The bottom line here is that we’re not going anywhere — I am not going anywhere,” he said.
“Run against me. Announce for president. Challenge me at the convention,” Biden added.
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