ProPublica just released an interview with President Biden conducted by former CNN White House correspondent John Harwood on Sept. 29th, nine days before the Hur interviews began. The outlet reports that Biden did not send questions to the White House beforehand. Additionally, the President did not seek approval for topics discussed during the interview. The interview is Joe Biden unedited, and he answered many questions about his age, threats to democracy, Congressional gridlock, Ethics rules for Supreme Court Justices, and a litany of other important topics.
Jan. 6th and political violence.
Biden said how to prevent another Jan. 6th from happening is by "not legitimizing it, and not talking about it like it's appropriate." The President said, "There is never a rationale for political violence in America. That's not who we are."
On Trump and MAGA Republicans.
"I think that this is sort of the last gasp or maybe the first big gasp of the MAGA Republicans," Biden said. "And I think Trump has concluded that he has to win, and he'll pull out all the stops. I mean, the quotes he uses are just -- I never thought I'd hear a president say some of the stuff he says."
"They (MAGA Republicans) don't make up a majority of the House, but they're bringing everything to a screeching halt," he said.
On polls and the media.
"I think the means in which people are tracking polls now, they've kind of lost their focus, and it's hard to get it done," Biden said. "Secondly, I think that -- I think, you know, the media has changed a lot."
On threats to democracy end election deniers.
"We should never condone violence in a democracy, but I think it's well beyond that," Biden told Hardwood. "For example, the idea -- when I talk about democracy, democracy is sort of the -- what surrounds the -- the -- the underpinning of democracy, the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, all those things that provide for the certainty that everybody gets a shot."
The President's debate performance was, well, disastrous. Still, his last four years in office proved that he could handle the job, and Biden was out in Raleigh just after the debate, listing his accomplishments to a passionate crowd. He had one terrible night. There are no two ways of looking at it, but Trump has a bad day every day.
