Many are talking themselves into the notion that Joe Biden’s sit-down interview across from ABC News host George Stephanopoulos is a make-or-break moment for the president’s campaign. That assumes that the campaign isn’t already irreparably broken.
Biden could turn in the most scintillating performance of his political career, but even that unimaginable spectacle isn’t going to erase the damage that has been done to his electoral prospects over the last eight days. Biden’s political epitaph has already been written, not by Trump-backing Republicans or squishy moderates desperate to be persuaded to vote for Biden, but by his own supporters. A cavalcade of center-left media outlets, elite columnists, Democratic governors, and members of Congress are on the record now insisting that Joe Biden should not run, cannot win, and should even abdicate the presidency can’t be taken back. Voters will not simply forget the events of the last week.
Even in a scenario in which Joe Biden delivers the interview of his life, Democratic enthusiasm for a second Biden term cannot be restored. There is an outside chance that Democrats convince themselves that foreclosing on Biden’s renomination to the presidency is just too difficult, the alternatives too risky. But that would only prolong the inevitable. Whatever version of Joe Biden appears on ABC News tonight, that person will not be sitting in the Oval Office on January 21, 2025.