NBC News anchor Lester Holt will interview President Joe Biden on Monday night as Democrats continue to consider the possibility of Biden removing himself from the presidential ticket.
Holt’s interview with Biden is set to air in primetime on Monday and portions of the interview will be shown on Holt’s 6:30 P.M. show beforehand, the network announced. After the primetime special, NBC will release the full interview and unedited transcript.
The NBC interview will be Biden’s second primetime sit-down following his disastrous debate performance and an avalanche of news stories about his mental difficulties. Since the debate, polls have skewed even further toward Trump across the battleground states, which will ultimately tilt the presidential election.
Last week, ABC News’s George Stephanopoulos, a former Clinton staffer, interviewed Biden about the debate and whether he will remain the Democratic party’s presumptive nominee. Biden failed to reassure Democrats of his fitness to serve and defiantly rejected the possibility of stepping down during his conversation with Stephanopoulos.
Yesterday, Stephanopoulos was caught on video telling a random person in Manhattan, New York, that he does not believe Biden is fit to serve four more years. He later expressed regret for answering the individual’s question.
Before he spoke to Stephanopoulos, Biden joined two black radio shows for interviews and both times answered questions his staff gave to the hosts beforehand, compromising the journalistic integrity of the interviews.
At the same time, Democrats are holding open conversations about Biden potentially stepping down from the presidential ticket because of his lack of mental capacity. Concerns about Biden’s age, 81, and the possibility he loses to Trump have prompted a handful of House Democrats to publicly demand Biden step aside for a different Democratic nominee.
Other prominent Democrats have called for Biden to decide whether he will stay in the race without explicitly saying whether he should step down or not. But, many Democratic lawmakers have stayed in Biden’s corner, particularly those in the Congressional Black Caucus, a group with considerable sway over the party’s decision-making.
While Democrats have been fighting over the party’s future, Trump has largely laid low and mostly stayed out of the news cycle for the first time in many years, keeping all eyes fixated on Biden.
The Republican National Convention is set to begin Monday in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and it will culminate in former president Donald Trump officially becoming the 2024 GOP presidential nominee. Trump’s stronghold over the Republican party is demonstrated by the GOP platform’s positions on a range of issues and departures from past positions on abortion and social security.
A unified Republican front for Trump’s coronation ceremony would pose a stark contrast to the Democratic chaos and uncertainty, especially given Trump’s history of unpredictability and erratic behavior.