Whispering about Donald Trump, fretting about Lindsey Graham and other outtakes from Joe Biden’s interview at The State
When Democratic Party presidential hopeful Joe Biden recently visited The State for a candidate interview with several reporters and editors, the session yielded a lot of good stuff that we couldn’t get into the original editorial.
So here are some additional takeaways on Biden’s session with The State:
1. Biden is so sure that he will defeat President Donald Trump in a general election that he doesn’t even feel compelled to always say it out loud — that’s how convinced the former vice president is that an impeachment-plagued Trump has little shot against him.
Yes, Biden did make a forceful case for why he’s the best Democratic candidate to face Trump: at one point he reeled off a list of states — Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Michigan, Georgia, Arizona and more — where polls have shown him ahead of Trump or on competitive footing with the president.
“They’ve had me beating Trump in Texas,” Biden said. “They’ve had me beating Trump in Florida by a wide margin.”
Added Biden: “Everybody talks about, ‘Well, (Trump) is still strong.’ But you’ve got 45 to 50 percent of the (American) people who think that he should be thrown out of office right now! That’s an awfully ridiculous place for Trump to start while I’m so strong.”
But for all of Biden’s rousing remarks about beating Trump, the comment that carried the most weight and resonance was a quiet one he made while wrapping up the interview. Leaning closely toward one of The State’s reporters, Biden lowered his voice to a dramatic stage whisper.
“Trust me,” Biden whispered, “I ... feel ... very ... good … about ... this.”
It was a show of quiet swagger in its purest form.
So trust us: Joe Biden is pretty confident that he’s going to be the next president of the United States — and if he’s not, no one in America will likely be more surprised than he will be.
2. It’s clear that Biden feels deeply let down by South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, a longtime friend and colleague during the Democrat’s numerous years representing Delaware in the U.S. Senate.
While Biden was upbeat throughout the nearly 60-minute interview, his tone became perceptibly subdued when he was asked about Graham and Graham’s efforts to launch an outside investigation into the relationship between Biden’s son, Hunter, and a Ukrainian energy company that had appointed the younger Biden as a board member.
“I gotta tell you, I’m really disappointed,” Biden said of Graham.
“I’m not very good at holding grudges ... but I know Lindsey knows better. I know he knows better. I don’t know, quite frankly, what’s gotten into Lindsey. I don’t know what happened.”
And that clearly hurts Biden — still.
3. Biden is determined to stay disciplined and refrain from ripping other Democratic presidential candidates.
While Biden bluntly declared that he would be a more electable candidate in a general election than Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders, he deftly steered away from directly criticizing any of his Democratic rivals.
“In this primary, there are a lot of good people, smart people — although it’s getting kind of ugly and negative the way stuff is going these days,” Biden said. “It’s gotten to a place that I’m not planning on going.”
But Biden made it abundantly clear that while he will go out of his way to avoid taking shots at Democrats while seeking the nomination, “it will be a different deal” when it comes to facing Trump as the party’s nominee.
“Just watch,” Biden said.
This story was originally published January 29, 2020 at 9:13 AM.