USA 2024: “I can do this job”, assures Biden after his calamitous debate against Trump

“I don’t speak as easily as I used to, I don’t speak as fluently as I used to, I don’t debate as well as I used to,” the 81-year-old Democrat acknowledged at a rally in Raleigh, North Carolina. “I give you my Biden word. I wouldn’t run again if I didn’t believe, with all my heart and soul, that I could do this job,” the American president added, however, declaring his “intention to win” this disputed southeastern state.

No question of withdrawal of candidacy, therefore, for a president almost unrecognizable on Friday, after the 90 painful minutes he spent Thursday evening facing his 78-year-old Republican rival, between swallowed words, unfinished sentences and haggard expression.

Obama support. The leader has, in the process, received the strong support of Barack Obama – who remains one of the most respected voices in the Democratic Party. “Bad debates happen,” the former president dismissed, assuring that this election “remains a choice” between someone “who has fought all his life for ordinary people” and Donald Trump, “who only cares about himself.”

In Raleigh, Joe Biden – aided, unlike the day before, by a teleprompter – repeated all the attacks that had fallen flat during the debate, boasting about his record and his ideas. He even jogged a few times as he arrived on stage. Donald Trump “is a one-man crime wave,” he said of the first former American president to be convicted of a criminal offence and prosecuted in a series of cases.

Hopes. At his side, his wife Jill Biden, very involved in this re-election attempt, wore a dress with multiple “Vote” inscriptions. The Biden camp therefore wants to believe that by November, the terrible impression left Thursday evening could fade, while the “lies” spouted by Donald Trump and the concerns for American democracy would take over.

It will be difficult. The Raleigh speech obviously has nothing to compare, in terms of audience, with the debate organized by CNN. The latter, according to the Nielsen institute, gathered 48 million viewers. “Joe Biden, a good man, a good president, is not in a position to seek re-election,” wrote a columnist on Friday in the New York TimesThomas Friedman, even saying he “cried” at the performance of his “friend” Joe Biden.

Wave of “panic ». Even Donald Trump’s supporters were careful not to add more. “The guy almost hurt me. Trump ate him alive,” commented Paul Meade, a 65-year-old retiree met by AFP in Chesapeake, Virginia, where the 78-year-old billionaire is expected early this afternoon. The American media are reporting a wave of “panic” among the Democrats, four months before the election and approximately six weeks before the convention supposed to inaugurate the president. For now, however, no Democratic Party heavyweight has publicly expressed this sentiment.

Joe Biden is now going to New York, for a ceremony commemorating one of the very first LGBT mobilizations in the United States, in June 1969, and for a meeting with donors. On Saturday, he will raise funds in the very chic Hamptons resort area, an opportunity also to take the pulse of his financial supporters, in an extremely expensive electoral race.

Vice President Kamala Harris herself acknowledged that Joe Biden had a “laborious” start, but felt that he had finished “strongly” against an opponent who made a series of false claims without ever losing his calm or his aplomb. The 59-year-old Democrat will campaign in Nevada on Friday. Her name is obviously on the list of those who could replace Joe Biden in the event of his withdrawal before November, along with those of a few prominent Democratic governors, such as Gavin Newsom in California or Gretchen Whitmer in Michigan.

Andrew CABALLERO-REYNOLDS with Aurélia END in Washington and Jim WATSON in Chesapeake

© Agence France-Presse