JET LAG Biden says he 'almost fell asleep' during debate with Trump

(Patria) - US President Joe Biden has admitted that his performance during last Thursday's presidential debate was not his best, but blamed it on jet lag, Reuters reported.

Biden has faced questions about his 2024 re-election bid following last week's shaky debate, with one House Democrat publicly calling on him to withdraw from the race on Tuesday.

Speaking at a campaign fundraising event in McLean, Virginia, last night, Biden acknowledged that the debate with former President Donald Trump, his Republican rival, had not gone well.

“I didn’t have the best night, but the fact is, you know, I wasn’t very sharp,” Biden said, speaking at a campaign fundraiser without the aid of a teleprompter.

“I decided to travel the world a couple of times, going through about 100 time zones... before... the debate. I didn’t listen to my staff and went back and almost fell asleep on stage,” he said. “That’s not an excuse, but it’s an explanation,” he added.

Biden traveled to France and Italy on two separate trips within two weeks last month, flying overnight from the Group of Seven summit in Bari, Italy, to appear at a fundraiser with former President Barack Obama in Los Angeles on June 15 before returning to Washington the next day. He then spent six days at Camp David
preparing for the June 27 debate.

White House officials had explained Biden’s stumbles during the debate as a cold, and Biden did not mention being sick at the fundraiser last night. A new Reuters/Ipsos poll that closed Tuesday showed one in three Democrats think Biden should end his re-election bid after the debate, but no prominent elected Democrat fares any better than Biden in a hypothetical matchup against Trump.

The two-day poll showed both Trump (78) and Biden (81) with 40 percent support among registered voters, suggesting Biden has not lost ground since the debate.