Do you remember when legendary actor Charlton Heston, the onetime president of the National Rifle Association, grabbed a replica of a flintlock long rifle and said to the NRA convention in 2000, if you want to take this from me, you’ll have to yank it from “from my cold, dead hands!'”
That seems to be the attitude of Joe Biden, who—despite a disastrous performance at the CNN presidential debate and the subsequent ABC News interview with anchor George Stephanopoulos, and despite calls to step aside emanating from everyone from Hollywood celebrities to CEOs to high-ranking Democrat lawmakers—steadfastly refuses to ride off into the sunset.
Instead, he’s doubling down and hoping his latest venture will save his flagging campaign: a primetime special on NBC News with anchor Lester Holt. Is there really any chance at all that this will change his fortunes?
MONDAY: President Joe Biden to sit down with NBC News' Lester Holt in an exclusive one-on-one interview.
— Breaking News (@BreakingNews) July 10, 2024
Watch the interview in its entirety on NBC and NBC News NOW on Monday, July 15 at 9 p.m. ET. https://t.co/y5MaPWbGAa pic.twitter.com/f7Knhlh10S
You’d think that after his showing on ABC, Biden would have read the tea leaves and realized he’s not helping himself with these incoherent interviews where he’s stuck without his notes, without Caretaker-in-Chief Jill, and without huge teleprompters. Even the hyperpartisan Democrat Stephanopoulos admitted on the streets of New York in the days afterward that Biden is simply not up to the job any longer.
When you've lost George...
George Stephanopoulos Says About Biden, 'I Don't Think He Can Serve 4 More Years'
While the president arguably did better in the interview than he did during the debate—an incredibly low bar indeed—the interview garnered 8.5 million viewers, which normally would be decent, but when you consider that an estimated 51-plus million watched the debate, you realize how badly he wasted a huge platform.
NBC News says it will release an unedited transcript of the the Biden interview with Lester Holt after the interview airs Monday night (unclear to me if "full interview" that's going to air means "unedited interview", but it seems like it) pic.twitter.com/prM7g9Z60s
— Steve Lookner (@lookner) July 10, 2024
Biden is also scheduled to hold a “big boy” press conference Thursday, something he’s apparently been allergic to since he took office.
It’s easy to understand Jill and Joe’s desperation as Hollywood celebs like George Clooney and Michael Douglas call for him to go away, while Sen. Michael Bennet (D-CO) predicts a landslide Trump win, and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and so many others have seemingly turned their backs on him.
With all that going on, it’s hard to imagine this will work out well for him. For all we know, Holt has been drinking from the same Kool-Aid as much of the press corps, who have gone from vociferously defending the president for years despite obvious signs of decline, to now suddenly en masse (except for maybe MSNBC) doing a complete 180 and questioning Biden like they never did before. It’s almost like the orders went out from their overlords…
At this point, it seems the only thing the octogenarian president can hope for is to make it through without any monstrous gaffes; it's unlikely that a press conference and another alphabet network interview will miraculously turn The Titanic around.
The public can't unsee what they saw.
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