Biden, downplaying debate performance, won't take cognitive test

July 6 (UPI) -- President Joe Biden, downplaying his poor debate performance, said during a televised interviewed he hasn't undergone cognitive and neurological exams.

Earlier Friday in Madison, Wis., a battleground state, Biden held a campaign rally where he said: "I can't say it was my best performance, but since then there's been a lot of speculation -- what's Joe going to do?" he said. "Well here's my answer: I am running, and I'm going to win again."

His health comments came during a 22-minute interview that aired Friday night on ABC.

"It was a bad episode," Biden, who doesn't believe he watched a rerun of the debate, said. "No indication of any serious condition. I was exhausted. I didn't listen to my instincts in terms of preparing and -- and a bad night."

Biden, the oldest president at 81, said he went into the debate exhausted, despite having spent several days preparing at Camp David.

"The docs with me, I asked if they did a COVID test because we were trying to figure out what was wrong," Biden said. "They did a test to see whether or not I had some infection, you know, a virus. I didn't. They just said I had a really bad cold."

Questioned repeatedly, Biden declined to agree to have an independent medical evaluation that included cognitive tests and share the results with the public.

"I have a cognitive test every single day," Biden said when George Stephanopoulos pressed him about taking a cognitive test. "Everything I do. Not only am I campaigning, I am running the world."

CNN chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta in an op-ed column called for Biden to undergo "detailed cognitive and movement disorder testing" and to release the results to the public.

Gupta said his concern over Biden's debate performance was shared with numerous medical colleagues.

"From a neurological standpoint, we were concerned with his confused rambling; sudden loss of concentration in the middle of a sentence; halting speech and absence of facial animation, resulting at times in a flat, open-mouthed expression," Gupta wrote, noting these observations are "not in any way diagnostic of something deeper."

Gupta also drew attention to the fact that Biden previously disclosed undergoing surgery for two separate brain aneurysm in 1988, and there is some evidence that they might increase the risk of delayed cognition later in life.

Stephanopoulos noted concerns voiced by some Democrats that staying in the race is not in the interest of the party or the country.

"If you can be convinced that you cannot defeat Donald Trump, will you stand down?" Stephanopoulos asked.

"It depends on -- on if the Lord Almighty comes down and tells me that, I might do that," Biden said.

He said didn't believe the polls he's trailing Trump.

CNN, The New York Times and the Wall Street Journal polls after the debate all showed Biden trailing Trump by six points nationwide. Besides battleground states of Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona, Nevada, Georgia, North Carolina, other states he won - Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Mexico and Virginia - appear to be in play.

On Saturday, Trump said he thought Biden should move ahead with his presidential campaign.

"Crooked Joe Biden should ignore his many critics and move forward, with alacrity and strength, with his powerful and far reaching campaign," Trump wrote in a sarcasm-tinged post on Truth Social.

He added: "He should be sharp, precise, and energetic, just like he was in The Debate, in selling his policies of Open Borders (where millions of people, including record numbers of Terrorists, are allowed to enter our Country, from prisons and mental institutions, totally unchecked and unvetted!), to Ending Social Security, Men playing in Women's sports, High Taxes, High Interest Rates, encouraging a Woke Military, Uncontrollable Inflation, Record Setting Crime, Only Electric Vehicles, Subservience to China and other Countries, Endless Wars, putting America Last, losing our Dollar Based Standard, and so much more. Yes, Sleepy Joe should continue his campaign of American Destruction and, MAKE CHINA GREAT AGAIN!"

Biden said he became flustered with Trump speaking while his microphone was muted.

In the Senate, Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., is organizing a group of Senate Democrats to talk about Biden's path forward in the 2024 election.

Democratic Sen. Chris Coons, of Delaware, a longtime friend and co-chair of Biden's reelection campaign, said on X: "President Biden has delivered remarkable progress for the American people, and he has plans to do even more in his next term. I can't wait to help him continue to take the fight to Trump and win in November."

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., plans to meet virtually with his House committee leaders Sunday afternoon before Congress returns to session Monday. The topics will include Biden's candidacy.

Five House Democrats have urged Biden to drop out of the race. in all there are 213 Democrats in the chamber.

Rep. Angie Craig, D-Minn., posted on Saturday to social platform X, writing "this is not a decision I've come lightly but there is simply too much at stake to risk a second Donald Trump presidency."

She joins Craig now joins fellow House Democrats Reps. Lloyd Doggett, D-Texas; Mike Quigley, D-Ill.; Raúl Grijalva, D-Ariz., and Seth Moulton, D-Mass., in publicly calling for Biden to withdraw from the race.

Doggett, the first House member to call for Biden to drop out, said there was "nothing" he heard Biden say Friday that would make him reconsider his decision.

"Joe Biden is a good man. He's an American patriot. Yet the need for him to step aside is more urgent tonight than when I first called for it on Tuesday," Doggett told CNN.

The Democratic Party also has to contend with unrest among wealthy donors.

A major Democratic supporter, Gideon Stein, president of the Moriah Fund, said he would pause planned donations of $3.5 million to nonprofits and political organizations aligned with Biden's campaign.

"Virtually every major donor I've talked to believes that we need a new candidate in order to defeat Donald Trump," Stein said.

CNN senior political commentator David Axelrod, who served as a senior adviser to former President Barack Obama, says Biden should withdraw as a candidate.

Writing in a Saturday op-ed for CNN, he said the ABC interviewhe didn't "quell the panic that has gripped the Democratic Party."

He mentioned three words: "Denial. Delusion. Defiance."

"The stakes are as great as Biden describes. And if he believes it, as I think he does, he will eventually do what duty and love of country requires, and step aside," Axelrod said.

"If he does not, it will be Biden's age, and not Trump's moral and ethical void, that will dominate the rest of this most important campaign and sully the president's historic legacy."

He noted after the debate, a New York Times poll found 74% said he too old and only 42% said the same about Trump, 78, "whose own terrible debate performance was eclipsed by Biden's meltdown."