Analysis: Three things to watch as Biden's candidacy hangs in balance

WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden plans a blitz of private phone calls with top Democrats and public appearances, including a TV interview and a news conference, to try to salvage his embattled reelection after a disastrous debate performance inflamed concerns about the 81-year-old president’s ability to defeat Donald Trump and do the job until January 2029.

But putting last week’s incoherent answers and far-away stares behind him will only add new degrees of difficulty to his rematch with front-runner Trump, the expected Republican nominee, despite the former president’s legal struggles and penchant to lie.

Biden returned to the White House on Monday evening for remarks slamming the Supreme Court’s conservative justices over their blockbuster ruling that Trump and other presidents have immunity from prosecution for official actions taken in office. Unlike during last week’s debate, his tone was clear and forceful as he made a plea to voters.

In a major change to his public schedule as he feels the heat from his fellow Democrats, the White House on Tuesday announced plans to put Biden back in front of voters and television cameras into the weekend.

He will speak to Democratic congressional leaders and governors later this week and travel to Wisconsin on Friday and Philadelphia on Sunday, said Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House press secretary. He also will sit down with ABC News for a one-on-one interview and hold a news conference during next week’s NATO summit in Washington, she said. He previously was scheduled to spend the weekend at his Wilmington, Del., residence.

Speaking at Tuesday’s White House briefing shortly after Texas Rep. Lloyd Doggett issued the first public call from a congressional Democrat for Biden to end his campaign, Jean-Pierre repeatedly said Biden had a “bad night” and a cold at the debate and that Biden himself acknowledges he doesn’t walk, talk or debate like he did when he was a younger man. Asked whether White House aides were hiding any physical and mental deficiencies in the boss, however, Jean-Pierre shot back, “Absolutely not.”

Here are three things to watch.

‘D.C. elites’

The Monday speech and a Tuesday appearance at a Washington, D.C., emergency operations facility to discuss extreme weather both were quintessential Biden, allowing him to rail against Trump then vow support for those who will be impacted. That is precisely what one former Democratic official said voters need to see and hear.

“I’m in the ‘Let Joe be Joe’ camp. Joe Biden needs to get out and interact with people — it’s always been his superpower,” Ivan Zapien, a former DNC official and aide to Sen. Bob Menendez, D-N.J., said in an email. “Let people see him and interact with him. Let his actions speak to the narrative in the press and with D.C. elites.”

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