President Joe Biden heads to Wisconsin, a 2024 presidential battleground state, on Friday for a highly-anticipated campaign rally and a key interview with ABC News that could be crucial to his candidacy and presidency.
Biden has been under pressure from some Democrats to publicly attest to his mental and physical health by answering questions or making unscripted remarks, and will have a key opportunity to do so when ABC host George Stephanopoulos speaks with him in Madison, Wisconsin, on Friday.
An initial excerpt will air on “World News Tonight,” followed by the full interview in a primetime special on ABC at 8 p.m. ET on Friday.
WATCH: ABC News anchor George Stephanopoulos’ exclusive first post-debate television interview with President Joe Biden will air in its entirety on Friday, July 5 at 8pm ET as part of an ABC News primetime special.
“I’m not going anywhere,” Biden said Thursday at a Fourth of July barbecue for military families, drawing chants from members of the crowd to “keep fighting!”
California Gov. Gavin Newsom said Biden met with Democratic governors at the White House on Wednesday to address their urgent concerns following his dismal debate performance and vowed to continue his presidential campaign.
Newsom, one of more than 20 Democratic governors who have met privately with Biden — both in person and virtually — said while campaigning for Biden in Michigan on Thursday, “I was really proud to be with Joe Biden last night. He started the meeting and his first words were, ‘We’re committed to doing this.’ And when we left that meeting and knew for sure, there wasn’t a single person who walked away that didn’t say, ‘Mr. President, we’re on your side.’ No one.”
Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, another Democrat rumored to be a potential replacement for the Democratic nominee, posted, “Joe Biden is our candidate. He is fighting to win and I support him.”
But at the same time, more than a half-dozen governors who attended the meeting expressed concerns about the president’s debate performance and the resulting fallout within their party, two people familiar with the conversations told ABC News senior congressional reporter Rachel Scott.
One governor made it clear to Biden that people didn’t think he was qualified to run for president, according to people familiar with the matter, while another governor asked Biden to outline a path forward.
A person who attended the meeting described the conversation as “frank” and “direct”, and said the president was “engaged” and “focused”.
Meanwhile, some Democrats have publicly called for Biden to resign.
After Rep. Lloyd Doggett of Texas on Tuesday became the first lawmaker to publicly say Biden should drop out of the race, another House Democrat, Rep. Seth Moulton of Massachusetts, said Thursday that Biden should drop out of the race.
“President Biden has done a great deal for our country, but it’s time for him to follow in the footsteps of one of our founding fathers, George Washington, and step aside so new leadership can rise up and take on Donald Trump,” Moulton told WBUR.
Representative Raul M. Grijalva of Arizona publicly urged Biden to drop out of the race, citing the “unsettled” state of the presidential campaign in an interview with The New York Times. He expressed concern that Biden would drag down House Democrats in November.
Rep. Marie Grusenkamp Perez, D-Washington state, told KATU that she thinks Biden’s performance last Thursday led to his defeat in the election against former President Donald Trump.
“Biden will lose to Trump. I know it’s difficult, but I think the damage was done in the debate,” she said.
As part of his efforts to reassure Democrats and the American public, Biden spoke with prominent black radio host Earl Ingram of Civic Media, whose Wisconsin-based show targets black listeners, a key voting demographic in a state where just a few thousand votes could decide the election.
“I made a mistake,” Biden said during the debate exchange broadcast on Thursday.
“It was a bad night. A bad night. The fact is I messed up, I made mistakes, but I learned from my dad that when you get knocked down, you just get up,” he said.
“I came back and I didn’t have a good debate. It lasted 90 minutes on stage. Think about what you’ve done in the last three and a half years,” he added.
ABC News’ Molly Nagle, Cheyenne Haslett, Isabella Murray and Oren Oppenheim contributed to this report.
