politics

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden warned Monday that a Supreme Court ruling granting presidents broad immunity from prosecution would further embolden unbridled Republican Donald Trump “to do whatever he wants” if he wins back the White House in November’s election.

Biden, who’s under enormous pressure following his disastrous performance in the controversy against Trump last week, urged Americans to rigorously consider their voting decision and signaled that he has no intention of dropping out of the race.

Biden criticized the court's conservative majority's decision – which virtually guarantees that Trump is not going to face trial in Washington before the November election for his conduct throughout the violent riots on January 6, 2021 – and said it was now as much as the American people “to do what the courts would have been willing to do but are not doing.”

“The American people must judge Donald Trump’s conduct.”

Biden's efforts to refocus his campaign after the controversy, which spooked donors and sparked deep fear amongst Democrats, closely resemble his previous attempts to focus entirely on Trump's misdeeds and inadequacies. During his transient address on Monday, he made no mention of last week's debate or his performance and didn’t take questions, delivering an unusually political message from the White House.

“I know I will respect the limits of the president's power, as I have for three and a half years, but any president, including Donald Trump, will now have the freedom to ignore the law,” Biden said.

Biden appeared relaxed and assured, had a crisp, clear tone of voice, and looked tanned and rested – all in stark contrast to his often halting performance during last week's debate, when his face was strikingly pale. The president also had the good thing about a teleprompter for his remarks concerning the court, something he didn’t have at his disposal when sparring with Trump.

There were private discussions inside Biden's camp about what more the president could do to counteract what Americans saw throughout the debate, when he gave muddled answers, paused at times, occasionally stared into space and sounded croaky. The conversations also touched on whether Biden ought to be more visible in public, resembling at town hall-style events or interviews and press conferences, which he has generally avoided during his time in office.

But most of those near him are waiting for more meaningful poll results to evaluate the extent of the damage before changing course in any significant way, based on 4 Biden advisers who weren’t authorized to talk publicly about internal discussions and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.

Biden's team may not change anything in any respect. Many imagine – or hope – that the awkward moment will pass, especially after Biden's family encouraged him at a gathering at Camp David on Sunday to remain within the race and keep fighting.

Campaign officials said Monday that that they had no latest events to announce. Biden will run his campaign as before and address the swing states as he has been doing for months.

An ad released Monday was titled “I Know” and used clips from Biden's post-debate rally in North Carolina, where he said, “When you get knocked down, you get back up.”

Quentin Fulks, Biden's deputy campaign manager, turned the main focus to Trump in a phone call with reporters, saying: “When you see President Biden on the campaign trail, he will talk about the reasons why Americans should be afraid of Donald Trump, just as he has been doing for months.”

Even before the controversy, the 81-year-old Democratic president's age was an obstacle with voters, and the prime-time debate brought the problem into focus, before perhaps the most important audience he can have within the 4 months until Election Day. CNN, which hosted the controversy, said greater than 51 million people watched.

“I think his age was a big factor, and I know he can do better than he did Thursday night. I expected more. I'm not sure that was the case for other voters,” said Jennifer Palmieri, White House communications director throughout the Obama administration and spokeswoman for Hillary Clinton's 2016 campaign.

She added that the campaign has responded tactically by supporting Biden's strong speech in North Carolina on Friday and continuing to publicize high fundraising numbers. Palmieri also said Biden can also need to undergo more interviews to proceed to point out that the controversy was an anomaly.

“Their focus needs to be on getting him in front of the voters who matter most, and more interviews should be part of that. Don't be like Trump in your own little universe,” she said. “Right now, it's early days, but what they're doing is working.”

One gets the sensation that voters are actually watching Biden more closely, searching for signs that may reveal, a technique or one other, whether his debate debacle was only a slip-up—whether, as he himself says, he’s fit for the job.

Alan Kessler, a lawyer and member of the Biden campaign's national finance team, has spent days reassuring nervous donors by telling them what he said he personally experienced when he saw the president – that he was “clear-headed and strong as ever.”

“I reassure people as necessary,” Kessler said.

Biden expressed interest in at the very least one interview. At a fundraiser Saturday in East Hampton, New York, Biden said he spoke with radio host Howard Stern, who interviewed him in April, answering open-ended questions that mostly related to his early years.

The president told the gang that he was ready for an additional conversation with Stern: “I had a great time on his show. And I'm actually going to take a chance and come back.”

Meanwhile, senior Biden campaign officials, including Fulks and Jen O'Malley Dillon, sought damage control by making calls Monday evening with about 500 members of the campaign's National Finance Committee and other donors, based on an individual acquainted with the private call who spoke to AP on condition of anonymity.

They downplayed potential consequences of the controversy, blamed the media for concerns about Biden's popularity and reiterated that Biden is fit for office. But the decision did little to allay the concerns of many supporters, the person said.

Campaign officials said there had been “no discussions whatsoever” about Biden dropping out of the race or any personnel restructuring after the controversy.

The window of opportunity is getting smaller and smaller anyway. The Democratic National Committee has announced that it’s going to officially nominate him because the nominee in a virtual vote before the party convention begins in Chicago on August 19. But when that may occur and what it’s going to seem like continues to be unclear.

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Associated Press writers Josh Boak and Michael Rubinkam in Scranton, Pennsylvania, and Thomas Beaumont in Des Moines, Iowa, contributed to this report.