Michigan Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer, a potential replacement candidate for President Joe Biden if he steps out of the race, rushed to his defense in an interview with USA Today interview
In the interview, which primarily focused on her new book, True Gretch, Whitmer defended Biden, arguing he keeps a “really aggressive calendar, and he’s showing up.”
According to the Michigan governor, Biden’s disastrous debate performance was not indicative of a deeper mental problem but of traveling “to Europe twice in one week.”
“But a 90-minute snapshot of a person with high integrity who’s served his country for decades − no one’s as good as their best 90 minutes or as bad as their worst 90 minutes,” Whitmer said.
“You should be judged by the service and what you’ve been able to get accomplished, and he’s showing up with the receipts.”
“[A]s I said, I think that this is a 90-minute snapshot of someone who has been back and forth to Europe twice in one week.”
“That’s a brutal calendar for a 52-year-old,” added Whitmer.
“And so I think about all the extraordinary things that people see, but don’t actually pause and say, wow, he actually keeps up this really aggressive calendar and he’s showing up, and certainly there’s that debate performance, and then there’ll be millions others where he’ll demonstrate the vigor and the capacity.”
White House aides told Axios they try to keep the president on a schedule that begins at 10:00 a.m. and ends at 4:00 p.m., claiming Biden is more likely to have verbal lapses outside of those hours.
However, several sources told the Wall Street Journal that Biden did not attend a meeting with world leaders in 2022 because he had to go to bed.
Meanwhile, Biden’s mental conditions have become the subject of debate among Republicans and a complete panic among Democrats following his awful debate performance.
Many are now speculating that Whitmer could be a potential replacement for Biden, despite her claiming she is committed to helping Biden win re-election.
Whitmer recently denied a POLITICO report claiming she told Democratic Party Chair Jen O’Malley Dillon that Michigan was now unwinnable for Biden.
“Jen had reached out to me to touch base after the debate, and the nature of our conversation was me for a thousandth time reiterating Michigan’s just tough terrain,” Whitmer told USAToday regarding the article.
“[T]he Biden campaign I think had a lot of high-level people reaching out to leaders across the country, and so I think it was just a routine call of the same nature that many of my colleagues fielded as well,” Whitmer added.
