Stephanopoulos Turns on Biden

David Zimmermann writes for National Review Online about one high-profile Democratic media insider’s bleak assessment of President Biden’s future.

ABC News anchor George Stephanopoulos said Tuesday that he doesn’t believe President Joe Biden can serve a second term, four days after interviewing the incumbent following his worrisome debate performance late last month.

“Do you think Biden should step down?” an anonymous person on the street in Manhattan asked the political commentator in a 20-second video posted Tuesday afternoon by TMZ. “You’ve talked to him more than anybody else has lately.”

“I don’t think he can serve four more years,” Stephanopoulos responded as he walked away. The pedestrian replied: “You don’t think he can serve four more years? All right, that’s an answer.”

Hours after the clip was published, Stephanopoulos said he regretted answering the question.

“Earlier today, I responded to a question from a passerby. I shouldn’t have,” he told TMZ. An ABC spokesperson added, “George expressed his own point of view and not the position of ABC News.”

On Friday, Stephanopoulos conducted a 22-minute post-debate interview with Biden. During the exclusive sit-down, the 81-year-old president failed to allay voters’ concerns about his health and age following the CNN debate on June 27. Biden described his performance that night as a “bad episode” and insisted he has no “serious condition,” but he declined to take an independent cognitive test to prove that claim.

“Look, I have a cognitive test every single day,” Biden told Stephanopoulos. “Every day, I’ve had tests. Everything I do. You know, not only am I campaigning, I’m running the world. And that’s not — it sounds like hyperbole, but we are the central nation of the world.”

Biden also refused to withdraw from the race, saying he would consider doing so only if convinced by divine intervention.

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