Joe Biden to blitz media over weekend to counter claims of mental decline

Joe Biden was gearing up on Friday for a three-day public relations blitz aimed at salvaging his floundering candidacy from the seven days of disarray sparked by last week’s disastrous debate performance, even as further revelations emerged that are likely to fuel concerns about whether he is suffering a mental decline.

In what is likely to be the most decisive set-piece event of his presidency, aside from the debate itself, Biden will give a television interview with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos in which he will aim to dispel the growing perception that he lacks the acuity to continue in office for another four years.

The interview, scheduled to last between 15 and 25 minutes and conducted on Friday afternoon, will be aired in full at prime time on Friday evening, having been moved from its original scheduled Sunday slot. The president’s performance is certain to be scrutinised for any verbal slips or missteps reminiscent of last week’s stumbling display in the CNN debate with Donald Trump.

Related: Joe Biden says he’s not ‘going anywhere’ but admits he needs more sleep

The interview will form the centrepiece of a weekend campaign schedule that will see Biden visit the battleground states of Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, both of which are seen as vital to the Democrats’ chances of retaining the White House.

The president’s campaign has also launched a $50m advertising campaign this month, following its record-breaking $127m fundraising haul in June. The media campaign will target the large and diverse audiences expected to tune in for major events like the summer Olympics and the Republican national convention.

The offensive comes ahead of another potentially hazardous test: next week’s Nato summit in Washington, where Biden is slated to hold an unscripted news conference – a rare event during his three-and-a-half-year presidency, which has seen him stage the fewest press conferences of any president since Ronald Reagan.

The fightback comes as more worries surfaced about whether Biden, who is 81 and would be 86 by the end of a potential second term, still possessed the requisite intellectual and physical vigour to win the race against Trump and govern for another four years.

New York magazine on Friday cited a recent incident where Biden reportedly failed to recognise a longtime acquaintance and Democratic party donor until prompted by his wife, Jill, who whispered in his ear and told him to say “hello” and thank them for a generous donation. Other longtime friends of Biden and his family were said to be shocked at instances where he could not remember their names.

A separate report from Axios said three White House officials – the deputy chief of staff, Annie Tomasini; the first lady’s top adviser, Anthony Bernal; and longtime aide Ashley Williams – would regularly remind the president of the names of people who he has known for a long time.

“Annie, Ashley and Anthony create a protective bubble around [Biden],” an unnamed White House source was quoted as saying.

“He’s staffed so closely that he’s lost all independence. [He] relies on staff to nudge him with reminders of who he’s meeting, including former staffers and advisers who Biden should easily remember without a reminder from Annie.”

“These are standard processes for any White House, regardless of president or party. The claims about these individuals – whose professionalism and character are respected across the administration – are inaccurate,” said a White House spokesman, Andrew Bates, in response to the Axios report.

“This is a team with experience keeping the faith as we helped earn the strongest record in modern history, and our focus is not on anonymous sniping.”

Biden attempted to reverse the perception of his decline at a meeting with Democratic state governors at the White House on Wednesday. The governors emerged expressing their renewed support for Biden. But the White House was forced to later emphasise that Biden was kidding when he responded to a question from Hawaii’s governor, Josh Green, who is a medical doctor, by saying his health was fine but adding: “It’s just my brain.” Biden also told the governors that he needed to get more sleep and would try not schedule events after 8pm.

In the lead-up to the ABC interview, Biden gave two radio interviews which aired on Thursday. Speaking to a Philadelphia radio station on Thursday, he twice garbled his words, saying at one point: “I’m proud to be, as I said, the first vice-president, first Black woman, to serve with a Black president,” and later that he was proud to be “the first president [who] got elected statewide in the state of Delaware” – a remark that may have intended to convey that he was the first Catholic to be elected statewide in Delaware, Politico reported.

The weekend’s offensive follow a calamitous seven days that have been the most fraught of Biden’s presidency – and arguably of his half-century-long political career – triggered by the 27 June debate performance, when he repeatedly lost his train of thought and appeared incapable of mounting simple political arguments that were once his stock-in-trade.

That episode sparked a firestorm of fevered debate among senior Democratic figures and donors about whether Biden should step aside as the presidential candidate, paving the way for an open nomination contest at next month’s national party convention.

While Biden tried to dismiss the performance as “one bad debate”, the continuing fallout has led to an erosion in his poll numbers against Trump, with even formerly safe Democratic states now appearing vulnerable.

The fight to prevent a second Trump presidency was given renewed urgency last Monday by a US supreme court ruling that gave him broad immunity for alleged crimes committed when he was in the White House – a decision which Biden vigorously condemned in a White House statement in which he said Trump would be “emboldened” if he won November’s election.

But Democrats complained that a recent media appearance was insufficient to overcome the fears provoked by the debate fiasco and said the president should have tried to meet senior party decision-makers and hold unscripted events and interviews without the help of a teleprompter, which he has relied on heavily throughout his presidency.

In response, Biden met with state governors – some of whom have been touted as potential replacement candidates – on Wednesday and has reportedly talked with Chuck Schumer, the Democratic Senate majority leader, and Hakeem Jeffries, the party’s minority leader in the House of Representatives.

His advisers also scheduled today’s interview with Stephanopoulos, a former White House communications director under Bill Clinton, in the hope that it could revive his image.

The limited outreach has failed to quell rising doubts, however, with at least three House Democrats publicly calling for him to step aside and many more expressing similar sentiments privately.

Trump, meanwhile, has remained uncharacteristically quiet about his rival’s predicament, a posture analysts said was indicative of how much damage the Democrats were inflicting on themselves by publicly agonising over Biden’s electability.

However, on Thursday a video emerged of Trump, sitting on a golf cart beside his youngest son, Barron, predicting that Biden would end his campaign, to be replaced as the Democratic candidate by Kamala Harris. “She’s so fucking bad,” the presumptive Republican nominee added.

Some post-debate polls have shown Harris doing better than Biden – though still trailing – in a match-up against Trump.