Joe Scarborough confronted President Joe Biden about his statement that he would feel satisfied losing to former President Donald Trump “as long as I gave it my all” during a surprise call-in appearance on “Morning Joe” on Monday. Biden has faced increased scrutiny due to verbal stumbles during his debate with Trump, and recent polls show 72% of Americans doubt his “mental and cognitive health to be president.” The aftermath of the debate brought more tough headlines, rumors of internal discontent among Democrats, and anxiety among campaign staff.
Despite this, Biden remains committed to staying in the race, reaffirming his decision at a rally in Wisconsin and in an interview with George Stephanopoulos on ABC News.
In his call to “Morning Joe,” Biden addressed his insistence on staying in the race, despite lagging poll numbers and calls from some Democrats for him to step aside.
JOE SCARBOROUGH: We noted yesterday that it was quite a contrast, that the people that were supporting you yesterday — compared to, say, a lot of the Washington insiders and Hollywood moguls, and go down the list of very powerful people that want you out — compared to the support that you had in Pennsylvania yesterday. That said, there are a lot of people of goodwill who love you, who believe you did a great job in your first term, who are still concerned.  Yesterday, the topic came up of the Stephanopoulos interview, where you were asked the question, how would you feel if Donald Trump beat you? How would you feel if you lost? And you said, as long as I did the best I could do, that’s the most important thing. That’s caused Democrats concern, who believe that losing is not an option. What would you say to those who were concerned by that answer?
JOE BIDEN: It’s not an option. And I’ve not lost. I haven’t lost. I beat him last time. I’ll beat him this time. And this is a guy who — look, we talk about debates. Look at his performance at debates. He lies, you know, Trump had 50 lies — I mean, look, this is a guy who says 10% of the universe — I’ll give you the benefit — he’s just a liar!
And he hasn’t done a damned thing since the debate. He’s been riding around the golf cart for ten days, down in Mar-a-Lago talking with his wealthy friends. I’m not running because of these guys, Joe. I’m running because, and you know me well enough to know me in the very beginning, I ran because I never bought on to the trickle-down economic theory, I never bought into the notion that we have to walk away from the rest of the world and cave to Putin or anybody else. I’ve never believed any of that.
And I’m confident that’s what the American people are. So I did was, I went out and wanted to make sure that there wasn’t any slippage at all, and with the average voter — I don’t care what the millionaires think. And by the way, 97% of all of the people who contribute to us are people making under, people are contributing under 200 bucks. I think we have the largest contingent ever in history. I’m not positive of that, but I think that’s true. And so I want their support, but that’s not the reason I’m running. I’m not running about what they think or what they care about.
And by the way, you don’t see a whole hell of a lot of them flocking to Trump, you don’t see a whole lot of CEOs flocking to Trump. You see the major economists out there talking about what I have been able to do. I don’t hear anybody talking about his economic plan, likely to bring America around and keep America first. And hearing Trump talking about all that he’s done and all, Trump, you know, Trump and his debate night — he’s a pathological liar. He lied about Roe. He refused to accept the outcome of the election. He refused to condemn January 6th, and he says, he claims, that he spoke with Putin before he invaded! What the hell are we doing, Joe? What are we doing? This is bizarre!
