Biden Makes Appeals To Donors As Concerns Persist Over His Presidential Debate Performance

RED BANK, N.J. (AP) — President Joe Biden looked to recapture his mojo and reassured donors at a Saturday fundraiser that he is fully up to the challenge of beating Donald Trump.

“I didn’t have a great night, but I’m going to be fighting harder,” Biden told attendees at the home of New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy. “Donald Trump is a genuine threat to the nation,” he emphasized, saying that his predecessor would undermine democracy if returned to the White House and his economic ideas would worsen inflation.

The 81-year-old’s troubling performance at the first presidential debate Thursday rattled many Democrats, who see Trump as a continuing danger after the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection. Biden’s meandering answers and struggles to respond to Trump prompted The New York Times editorial board to declare Friday that he should exit the race and that staying in would be a “reckless gamble.”

Biden and his wife, Jill, attended an afternoon campaign event in East Hampton, New York, the Long Island beach town where the real estate firm Zillow prices the median home at $1.9 million. Based on public records, the event that was closed to the news media was at the home of Avram Glazer, an owner of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers football team.

The couple then went to a second event in East Hampton at the home of investor Barry Rosenstein, whose wife, Lizanne, said the president was “a role model for what it is to get knocked down over and over and over again and get up.”

“We can waste time comparing debate nights,” she continued. “But you know what? It’s more meaningful to compare presidencies.”

Addressing the gathering, Biden tore into Trump over his presidential record including his treatment of veterans and pointed to Trump’s own poor