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Biden’s Cabinet has few words about Biden fitness concerns post-debate

Cabinet members who proudly defended President Biden’s fitness for office prior to Thursday night’s presidential debate took a more reserved, if unambiguous, stance on Friday morning as the dust settled. 

Several top members of the Biden administration said they stood by their previous statements about Biden’s abilities and said no efforts to declare the president incapable of serving via the 25th Amendment were underway now or should be in the future.

But the group also offered no new support for the embattled commander-in-chief, whose debate performance only amplified increasing concerns about his mental acuity.

‘His mental and physical decline has been obvious throughout his presidency,’ House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said Friday. ‘To anyone who hasn’t been paying attention, last night should have been a wake-up call.’

Cabinet members provided terse responses when asked about Biden’s performance and how it contrasted with the recent and far more effusive pre-debate defenses they offered of the president.

Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Sec. Alejandro Mayorkas last week rejected accusations that Biden is ‘slipping,’ instead claiming that ‘the president always draws on our prior conversations and past events in analyzing the issues and reaching his conclusion.’

When asked if Mayorkas stands by those comments, a DHS spokesperson told Fox News Digital: ‘YES.’

The spokesperson also insisted that the 25th Amendment ‘SHOULD NOT’ be invoked to relieve Biden of his duties. The amendment governs presidential succession and provides a mechanism for the vice president to assume the duties of the president if a majority of the cabinet finds that the president is ‘unable to discharge the powers and the duties of his office.’ Any dispute from the president would then send the matter to Congress.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken likewise stands by his prior comments, according to a spokesperson. Blinken previously stressed that during his 22 years working with Biden, ‘his depth of knowledge, fluency with policy and politics and ability to cut to the chase and argue his case are exceptional. He’s invariably one step ahead of us.’ 

Energy Sec. Jennifer Granholm also reaffirmed her support for Biden, according to Department of Energy Director of Public Affairs Amanda Finney. 

‘Yes, the Secretary stands by her comments made previously,’ Finney said in an email to Fox News Digital. 

A spokesperson for Treasury Sec. Janet Yellen told Fox News Digital that ‘The Secretary stands by her previous comments including the statement provided to Fox digital’ and rejected talk of the 25th Amendment, saying there are no rumblings and ‘it won’t be’ invoked. 

Yellen previously told Fox News Digital: ‘Both in Washington and in meetings with world leaders around the globe — including during strenuous negotiations with President Xi — I’ve always seen President Biden to be extremely well-informed, in command of the facts and very effective in advancing American interests.’

A spokesperson for Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland said that they had ‘nothing to add’ beyond comments made last week, in which Haaland touted Biden’s mentorship and described his leadership as ‘a strong, experienced hand as well as a compassionate heart in this era of both environmental and political challenges.’

‘Each time, he takes charge and implores us to think more deeply about our task of moving our country forward,’ Haaland said in the earlier remarks. 

A White House spokesperson said any inquiries for Vice President Kamala Harris, who made the rounds on CNN and MSNBC immediately following the debate Thursday night and who was sought for comment in her official executive branch capacity, should be directed to the Biden campaign. The campaign did not immediately respond when contacted.

Other cabinet members did not respond to a Fox News Digital request for comment by the time of publication. 

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Surprising lessons Ronald Reagan learned as a lifeguard on the Rock River

Before I accepted the part of a young Ronald ‘Dutch’ Reagan in the motion picture ‘Reagan,’ I didn’t know a whole lot about 40th president. After all, I was born the same year he finished his second term. However, I did begin to learn about how much of an iconic figure Reagan was as soon as I told my grandmother the news. ‘My baby, Ronald Reagan was so handsome,’ it was the first time I saw my Nonna fawn, hah.  

Then, I began to learn more about how much Reagan was really loved. When I would tell people about getting cast as a young Reagan, the conversation would immediately shift away from me, as folks would offer up a personal story of how Reagan touched their lives, and I found that incredibly endearing … it also made me realize how much pressure I was about to be under playing such a beloved figure. 

My role spans from the time period of his lifeguard days to when he was starting out as an actor. During his sophomore year in high school and for the next seven summers in Dixon, Illinois, Reagan was a lifeguard at Lowell Park’s swimming section of the Rock River. From Memorial Day to Labor Day, he worked 12 hours a day, seven days a week.  

As the story goes, he saved 77 lives during his time at Lowell Park. Reagan kept track of those rescues by cutting a notch in a log for each time he pulled someone in trouble out of the water. Reagan’s upbringing and young life helped shape his future as president. I was excited to play ‘Dutch’ as he was nicknamed early in life and help people discover what Reagan was like before he became president, especially for those who know little about him.  

Perhaps it’s a good time for my generation to see the story of the president known as The Great Communicator who, it was said, reached across the aisle that separates us. During a time when there’s obviously a huge political rift going on in our country, we need respectful dialogue. We also should not allow our different feelings to stop us from reaching across the divide. I hope our film will remind all Americans that what unites us is far greater than those things that separate us.  

I’m one of three actors playing Reagan in our film. Tommy Ragen kicks things off when Reagan faces his first life crisis, I pick up the baton in his later teens and then Dennis Quaid portrays Reagan during his time in Hollywood, then governor of California, then president. 

I get the lifeguard era when young Reagan learns important lessons that he will draw on later in life. While it may be true that some of those 77 saves he made may have been ‘saving’ damsels in distress who were looking for a creative way to meet the lifeguard, it’s also true that the Rock River was a dangerous body of water — so dangerous in fact, that today no swimming is allowed there.

I was excited to play ‘Dutch’ as he was nicknamed early in life and help people discover what Reagan was like before he became president, especially for those who know little about him.

It was at that river that the character I play learned a few lessons about life that would help later; learning to see the currents under the water that others can’t see, learning to deal with people not thanking you when you save them, and discovering that people don’t always understand that they’re in danger.  

Those are lessons we can all take to heart as we navigate the challenging waters of life.   

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Biden-Trump debate compared to Nixon and Kennedy’s historic matchup

President Biden and former President Trump’s tense Thursday night match-up was the first debate since 1960 to not feature a live audience.

CNN CEO Mark Thompson told Axios earlier this week that he was aiming for ‘an absolutely classic debate,’ similar to the first-ever televised debate between former Presidents Kennedy and Nixon in 1960. 

It was one of several details that spurred comparisons online between the CNN Presidential Debate and the historically significant first debate between Kennedy and Nixon.

Political commentator S.E. Cupp wrote on X, ‘Maybe the most consequential debate since Nixon/Kennedy?’

Nixon, who had just spent the better part of a decade as vice president in the Eisenhower administration, had led then-young Sen. John F. Kennedy in most national polls ahead of the event, according to the National Constitution Center.

However, Kennedy’s team took a more media-savvy approach, accepting an invitation for a media walkthrough before the event and opting for wearing makeup for the cameras, according to reports.

Nixon, feeling the toll of both the intense campaign trail and a recent hospital stay, appeared tired and unhealthy. 

It was widely reported that people who watched the debate on television thought Kennedy won, and people who listened to it on the radio thought Nixon won. Kennedy went on to win the election by a narrow margin.

RealClearPolitics elections analyst Nathaniel Rakich made the comparison to Thursday’s debate on X.

‘The modern version of the Nixon-Kennedy debate: People who only read the transcript will think Biden won, people who watch or listen will think Trump won,’ he wrote.

Others also compared Biden to Nixon after the 81-year-old president appeared tired and sometimes unfocused while sparring with his rival on screen.

Former Trump 2020 campaign aide Tim Murtaugh wrote on X, ‘It’s funny. They say that people who listened to Kennedy and Nixon debate on the radio thought Nixon won because he spoke well and made good arguments. But people who watched on TV thought Kennedy won because he looked better.’

‘Biden lost both groups tonight,’ he added.

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First 2024 Trump-Biden presidential debate: Top clashes over issues from the border to Ukraine

Heated exchanges ensued between former President Donald Trump and President Joe Biden during the CNN Presidential Debate on Thursday night, as the two rivals went head-to-head during their second debate since 2020. 

Illegal immigration, abortion, and inflation were among the top issues on the debate stage, as well as climate change and the Israel-Hamas and Russia-Ukraine wars.

The debate comes as Biden and Trump are the frontrunners for the Democratic and Republican parties respectively. This is the first televised debate between the candidates for this election cycle and a second hosted by ABC is scheduled to be held in September. 

Trump did not participate in the Republican primary debates, while the Democratic National Convention (DNC) threw its full support behind Biden and did not hold any debates among his challengers.

Here are the top clashes from Thursday’s debate:

1. ‘I really don’t know what he said,’ Trump-Biden immigration clash

When CNN moderator Jake Tapper asked President Joe Biden to inform voters why he can curb the record-high numbers of illegal migrants crossing the border during Thursday night’s debate, Biden and Trump sparred over their immigration policies, which ended in Biden calling Trump a ‘liar’ and Trump appearing to not understand a portion of Biden’s responses.

After touting Congress’s bipartisan border package that lawmakers bucked earlier this year, Biden said ‘we find ourselves in a situation where when he was president, he was separating babies from their mothers put them in cages, making sure that the families were separated.’

‘That’s not the right way to go. What I’ve done since I’ve changed the law, what’s happened? I’ve changed it in a way that now you’re in a situation where there are 40% fewer people coming across the border illegally, that’s better than when he left office. And I’m going to continue to move until we get the total ban on the total initiative relative to what we can do with more Border Patrol and more asylum officers,’ Biden said.

But Trump, appearing to not understand Biden, responded: ‘I really don’t know what he said at the end of that sentence, I don’t think he knows what he said either.’

‘Look, we had the safest border in the history of our country,’ Trump continued. ‘All he had to do was leave it, all he had to do was to leave it. He decided to open up our border, open up our country, to people that are from prisons, people that are from mental institutions, insane asylum, terrorists – we have the largest number of terrorists coming into our country right now.’

2. ‘Alley cat morals,’ Trump-Biden clash over Stormy Daniels allegations

Biden accused former President Trump of ‘having sex with a porn star’ and said he has ‘the morals of an alley cat,’ but the presumptive Republican nominee maintained that he did not, and accused Biden of being behind his legal cases because ‘he can’t win fair and square.’ 

‘How many billions of dollars do you owe civil penalties for molesting a woman in public? For doing a whole range of things—having sex with a porn star…while your wife was pregnant?’ Biden said. ‘You have the morals of an alley cat during the night, sir.’ 

Trump fired back denying the allegations.

‘I didn’t have sex with a porn star, number one,’ he said. ‘Number two, that was a case that was started, and they moved a high-ranking official—DOJ—into the Manhattan DA’s office to start the case.’ 

Trump was referring to Matthew Colangelo, who served as a senior DOJ official in the Biden administration, and left to join Bragg’s prosecution team. 

3. ‘I will have that war settled between Putin and Zelenskyy as President-Elect before I take office,’ Trump-Biden spar over Ukraine-Russia war

Trump threw several jabs at Biden for giving billions of dollars to Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelenskyy to continue its defense against the Russian invasion that began in February 2022 and said if elected, he’d have the war ‘settled’ before taking office.

‘He’s given $200 billion, that’s a lot of money,’ Trump said. ‘I don’t think there’s ever been anything like it. Every time that Zelenskyy comes to this country. He walks away with $60 billion. He’s the greatest salesman ever.’

‘The money that we’re spending on this war, we shouldn’t be spending. It should have never happened. I will have that war settled between Putin and Zelenskyy as President-Elect before I take office on January 20. I’ll have that war settled. People being killed so needlessly, so stupidly and I will get it settled, and I’ll get it settle fast before I take office.’

In response, the current president said, ‘The fact is that Putin is a war criminal.’

‘He’s killed thousands and thousands of people and he has made one thing clear, he wants to reestablish what was part of the Soviet empire, not just a piece, he wants all of Ukraine,’ he said.

‘By the way, all that money we give Ukraine from weapons we make here in the United States, give them the weapons, not the money at this point, and I made our NATO allies produce as much funding for Ukraine as we have – that’s why it’s that’s why we’re strong,’ he said. 

4. Trump-Biden spar over cognitive abilities, golf handicaps: ‘You are a child’

During the CNN Presidential Debate, CNN moderator Dana Bash presented the age Biden and Trump would be at the end of a potential second term.

Biden would be 86. Trump would be 82. 

Biden defended his age, saying he ‘spent half my career being criticized about being the youngest person in politics. I was the second-youngest person ever elected to the United States Senate, and now I’m the oldest. This guy is three years younger and a lot less competent.’ 

But Trump reminded that he has taken two cognitive tests. 

‘I aced both of them, as you know, we made it public. He took none. I’d like to see him take one. Just want a real easy one,’ Trump said. 

Trump, an avid golfer, said Thursday night that he recently ‘won two club championships—not even senior—two regular club championships.’ 

‘To do that, you have to be quite smart and you have to be able to hit the ball a long way and I do it,’ Trump said. ‘He doesn’t do it. He can’t hit a ball 50 yards. He challenged me to a golf match—he can’t hit a ball 50 yards.’ 

‘I’ve seen you swing. I know your swing,’ Trump fired back. ‘Let’s not act like children.’ 

But Biden replied: ‘You are a child.’ 

5. Biden-Trump exchange jabs over criminal records

While Biden reminded Trump that the ‘only person’ that has a felony record on the debate stage is Trump, the former president said ‘when he talks about a convicted felon, his son is a convicted felon.’

‘At a very high level, his son is convicted,’ Trump said, adding that he’d seek ‘retribution,’ referring to a potential November election victory. 

‘As soon as he gets out of office, Joe could be a convicted felon with all of the things that he’s done,’ he continued. ‘He’s done horrible things, all of the death caused at the border, telling the Ukrainian people that we’re gonna want a billion dollars if you change the prosecutor, otherwise, you’re not getting a billion dollars. If i ever said that, that’s quid pro quo.’

‘This man is a criminal. This man, you’re lucky, you’re lucky. I did nothing wrong. We have a system that was rigged and disgusting,’ Trump said.

Meanwhile, Biden pushed back at the idea that he has done any wrongdoing ‘is outrageous.’

‘It’s simply a lie,’ Biden responded. ‘Number two, the idea that you have a right to seek retribution against any American just because you’re president is wrong. No president has ever spoken like that before. No president in our history has spoken like that before.’ 

Fox News Digital’s Brooke Singman contributed to this report. 

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Jill Biden gushes over president’s debate performance despite poor reviews: ‘You did such a great job’

President Joe Biden was praised by his wife on Thursday following his first presidential debate appearance despite a widely-criticized performance.

First Lady Jill Biden greeted her husband on stage at the debate after-party with a live audience, seeming to celebrate the mere fact that the president responded to moderators’ questions. 

‘Joe, you did such a great job! You answered every question, you knew all the facts!’ Jill Biden cheered to a smiling Joe Biden on-stage.

‘And let me ask the crowd. ‘What did Trump do?’ the first lady continued, turning to the audience and gesturing before shouting ‘Lie!’

The moment has gone viral since the debate, with many articles reporting on Jill Biden’s manner of speaking being reminiscent of praising a child.

Biden’s performance at the debate has been almost universally panned by commentators due to his inarticulate speaking and unstable demeanor.

Repeated stammering, long periods of silence and facial expressions that conveyed intense confusion have convinced some of Biden’s loudest cheerleaders that the president must step down from the re-election campaign.

New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, a longtime Biden ally, wrote the debate ‘made me weep’ and realize Biden should step aside.

‘I cannot remember a more heartbreaking moment in American presidential campaign politics in my lifetime — precisely because of what it revealed: Joe Biden, a good man and a good president, has no business running for re-election,’ he wrote.

CNN commentator Van Jones, who cried for joy when Biden won the 2020 presidential election, offered an emotional plea for the president to step aside.

‘I love that guy as a good man. He loves his country. He’s doing the best that he can. But he had a test to meet tonight, to restore confidence of the country and of the base, and he failed to do that,’ Jones said. ‘And I think there’s a lot of people who are going to want to see him consider taking a different course now.’

Fox News Digital’s Joseph A. Wulfsohn contributed to this report.

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Fox News Digital focus group members shift whom they are voting for after debate

Some members of the Fox News Digital focus group had a change of heart on how they planned to vote after watching the debate.

‘Cognitive ability … this is the highest office, and for me, it’s very important that I trust the executive to understand and be cognitively competent,’ one member of the focus group, who changed their support from President Biden to former President Donald after the debate, said of their reasoning.

The comments come after the first debate between Biden and Trump, who will square off in a rematch of the 2020 election.

Biden, who has faced growing questions about his fitness to continue serving in the nation’s highest office, looked to dispel any notion that he lacked the physical and mental capacity for four more years as president. However, many critics point out that his performance only did more to deepen those fears among voters.

‘From the very first moment, Biden looked old, hard to understand, confused, saying scary things, and just throwing mud,’ Fox Business’ Larry Kudlow said shortly after the debate.

‘I’ve lived four years with Trump, I lived three and a half years with [Biden]. I’ll take the other four.’

Those observations were shared by the Fox News Digital focus group, with one member saying that one only had to play back video of the debate to see why the night solidified his support for Trump.

‘I’ve lived four years with Trump, I lived three and a half years with [Biden],’ the member said. ‘I’ll take the other four.’

Overall, 10 of the 15 members of the group said they were supporting Trump after the debate.

Asked whether any moments for Biden stuck out, some respondents praised the president for his positions on taxes and childcare. Nevertheless, the group expressed concern overall when it comes to Biden’s ability to lead the country.

‘I don’t think anyone is going to remember anything he said tonight,’ one member said. ‘They’re going to remember how he said it.’

For its part, the Biden campaign insists the debate was a net negative for Trump and helped make the case for the president.

‘Based on research we conducted during tonight’s debate, it is clear that the more voters heard from Donald Trump, the more they remembered why they dislike him. Meanwhile, President Biden started slow but finished strong,’ a Biden campaign official told Fox News Digital in an email early Friday morning. 

The Biden campaign referred to a ‘survey of undecided voters in a Midwest state’ where ‘debate-watchers agreed that President Biden won the debate and the more they saw of Donald Trump’s erratic and vindictive behavior, the more they remembered why they voted against him in 2020.’

‘Over the course of the night, Trump continued to double down on unpopular policy positions and petty and vindictive personal anecdotes, while refusing to address the issues that undecided voters actually care about,’ the official added.

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Trump wins big by letting Biden be Biden

Going into Thursday’s debate, I said the two candidates would have to fight their own worst tendencies to reassure voters. Rusty from years off the debate stage, they’d have to reach out to that double-hater demographic, suburban doubters and independent voters. This small sliver of voters that remains undecided needed to be reassured in different ways. 

From President Joe Biden, they needed to see a man who was in command, smooth and consistent in his delivery, who could defend a record that simply doesn’t feel great to the average voter. They needed to see a man who laid to rest concerns about his age, or at least quelled them for a night, as he had done at the State of the Union. 

From former President Donald Trump, they needed to see a man who was temperate and disciplined, who could contrast his record with Biden’s while controlling his bombastic personality quirks and tendency to re-litigate his worst moments and dwell on 2020. 

The most advantageous version of both men that could show up was the State of the Union version. State of the Union Biden is more energetic and fluent, with a handful of policy points at his disposal, if disconcertingly loud. State of the Union Trump is Trump but more subdued, with a handful of ad libs. 

Only one of those guys showed up, and the contrast was undeniable. Even the difference in the two men’s voices in their opening statements told the story of the debate. 

It was less than 15 minutes into the debate that Biden seemed to lose his train of thought, ending an answer with a nonsensical non sequitur: ‘and we finally beat Medicare.’ 

Trump capitalized, merely smirking as he waited for Biden to deliver his answer, then following up with a critique about how Biden ‘beat Medicare. He beat it to death.’  

Trump’s uncharacteristic restraint, along with a debate rule that cut off mics to prevent crosstalk, let the current president bury himself instead of being rescued by Trump’s interjections.  

In a disgraceful moment, Biden simply erased the 13 American servicemembers who were killed at the Abbey Gate in Afghanistan during the disastrous withdrawal.  

‘Truth is, I’m the only president this century that doesn’t have — this decade — any troops dying anywhere in the world like he did.’ 

Not only was Biden’s mention of one of his most notable and deadly failures an unforced error, but Trump was able to retort: 

‘And as far as Afghanistan is concerned, I was getting out of Afghanistan, but we were getting out with dignity, with strength, with power. He got out, it was the most embarrassing day in the history of our country’s life.’ 

Trump then used his best skill — comedic timing and a sense for good TV entertainment — to deliver the line of the night. After a somewhat rambling and mumbly answer from Biden on immigration, the moderator came to Trump. 

‘I really don’t know what he said at the end of that sentence. I don’t think he knows what he said either.’ 

He said what everyone was thinking. All of that happened in the first 25 minutes of the debate, the most-watched part of any debate, the part that the very people both candidates needed to reach were tuning in.  

There were arguably moments in which Biden was slightly better as the debate wore on, but it didn’t matter. I struggle to remember even one punch Biden landed on Trump, even on easy subjects, like January 6.

On the subjects of the future of democracy or abortion — the only issues on which Biden consistently leads with voters and which are supposed to form the basis of his whole campaign — Biden didn’t lay a glove on him. 

It was Biden, not Trump, who gave the most off-putting answer on the issue of abortion, leaving pro-choice activists tearing their hair out as he talked about women being raped by their in-laws. I’ll let you try to decipher it: 

‘Look, there’s so many young women who have been – including a young woman who just was murdered and he – he went to the funeral. The idea that she was murdered by a – by –by an immigrant coming in, and they talk about that. But here’s the deal, there’s a lot of young women who are being raped by their – by their in-laws, by their – by their spouses, brothers and sisters, by – just – it’s just – it’s just ridiculous. And they can do nothing about it.’ 

By not becoming the story of the debate, Trump scored a big win. Biden became the only story of the night by delivering, as even his ally MSNBC host Joe Scarborough put it, ‘the worst debate performance in modern history.’ 

Trump then used his best skill — comedic timing and a sense for good TV entertainment — to deliver the line of the night. After a somewhat rambling and mumbly answer from Biden on immigration, the moderator came to Trump. ‘I really don’t know what he said at the end of that sentence. I don’t think he knows what he said either.’ 

Democratic partisans and much of media are rightly freaking out in the wake of Biden’s night, seeming to suddenly realize that the 81-year-old might not be up to the job. The number of times the word ‘panic’ is going to be used on MSNBC might surpass the number of border-crossings today. 

But Democrats are truly in a sticky situation if they want to accomplish their barely concealed dream of replacing Biden on the ticket in the summer of an election year. Biden has been running for president since I was a child. He seems unlikely to step aside without a fight. His wife, the figure closest to him, was at his afterparty congratulating him because he ‘answered every question. You knew all the facts,’ as Biden smiled woodenly at an audience that pretended not to see what was before their eyes. 

But pretending not to see what was before their eyes is what got Democrats here. The surprise you see today at Biden’s decline from our elites is just them catching up with voters, 69% of whom in this week’s NYT/Siena poll said Biden is too old to effectively be president for another four years. That number is not new. This information is not new. What’s new is they just realized they might not be able to get away with lying to all of us about it. 

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Trump says Biden ‘will be the nominee’ amid Dem panic over debate performance

Former President Trump said he believes that President Biden ‘will be the nominee’ for the Democratic Party, despite the president’s debate performance Thursday night that prompted calls from those on the left for him to withdraw from the 2024 race. 

Trump and Biden faced off in the first presidential debate in Atlanta on Thursday night. 

‘It was a great honor to be on stage representing the people of our country,’ Trump told Fox News Digital in an exclusive interview Friday morning. 

The Trump campaign declared victory shortly after the showdown ended, saying the former president and presumptive Republican nominee had ‘delivered the greatest debate performance and victory in history to the largest voter audience in history, making clear exactly how he will improve the lives of every American.’ 

‘Joe Biden on the other hand showed exactly why he deserves to be fired,’ Trump campaign co-chairs Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles said in a statement Thursday night. ‘Despite taking a week-long vacation at Camp David to prepare for the debate, Biden was unable to defend his disastrous record on the economy and the border.’ 

They added: ‘President Trump is spot-on when he says that if Joe Biden is too incompetent to stand trial, then Biden is too incompetent to be President.’ 

That sentiment about Biden’s performance was echoed not only by his opponents, but also by traditional allies, with many Democratic strategists — including a number of former Biden administration officials, like White House press secretary Jen Psaki and White House Communications Director Kate Bedingfield, expressing concern for the future of the president’s re-election campaign. 

With a raspy voice and delivering rambling answers, Biden struggled during portions of Thursday night’s debate. He also lost his train of thought several times, raising concerns among his closest allies in politics and in the media. 

Sources told Fox News that some Democrats were even suggesting the possibility of replacing Biden as the nominee at the Democratic nominating convention in August. 

During the exclusive interview with Fox News Digital, Trump was asked whether he believes that Biden will be the Democratic nominee. 

‘Yes, I think he will be the nominee,’ Trump said. 

When pressed further on concerns from Democrats over Biden’s performance and chatter that the president could be replaced, Trump told Fox News Digital he does not think Biden will be removed.

‘No, I don’t think so,’ Trump said, touting his own debate performance. ‘They wouldn’t have done any better. No one else would have been better.’

Trump said he ‘beat’ Biden, and suggested he would have beaten anyone else on stage with him.

A flash poll conducted by CNN following Thursday night’s presidential debate showed Trump soundly defeating Biden.

The CNN poll posted on air showed that 67% of debate watchers felt that Trump had won the debate, compared to 33% who believed that Biden had won the debate.

Biden, though, told reporters after the debate that he felt he had performed well against Trump. 

‘I think we did well,’ Biden told reporters at an Atlanta area Waffle House.

Biden was asked whether he was suffering from a cold, which the campaign revealed following the debate performance where many expressed concerns about the sound of the president’s voice.

‘I am sick,’ Biden said.

Officials revealed during the debate Thursday night that the president had a cold. 

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WATCH: Fox News Digital focus group voters raise concerns about Biden following debate with Trump

Not a single voter who participated in a Fox News Digital focus group said they felt better about President Biden after watching his performance at the CNN Presidential Debate on Thursday.

Democrats, independents and Republicans who gave their real-time reaction to the debate said that former President Trump appeared stronger than Biden when it came to effective communication and the ability to appear like a leader.

‘He got off to a horrible start,’ a male voter told focus group leader Lee Carter, president of Maslansky and Partners. ‘At the beginning he couldn’t even put a sentence together at the opening statement.’ 

One woman expressed disappointment in the debate, noting that Biden and Trump spent more time attacking each other’s records than discussing the problems facing the country.

‘I think they’re just battling each other, like, head on and not addressing the real problems. Like, they’re just trying to be on top of each other. It just felt like, I don’t know, a fist fight to me,’ she said. 

A man who said he was ‘okay’ with Biden’s performance suggested the president would have been helped if his microphone was closer to his mouth. Biden’s voice appeared raspy during the debate and at times he did not project at the level of his opponent, Trump.

But another woman interjected, saying that Biden, as an executive, should be able to project and communicate his points.  

‘Given that he was one of the earliest, as you mentioned, senators and has been in politics for decades, I don’t think that is an excuse,’ she said. 

Another male voter compared the physical presence of the two candidates and said Trump had an edge over the 81-year-old Biden. 

‘Okay, you just take Trump versus Biden on the physical and the ability to communicate: Trump is 78 years old also, but he is communicating as if he was 55 years old, and he’s getting his points across, and he’s acting like a leader,’ a male voter said.

At the onset of the discussion, about half of the focus group indicated they had concerns about Trump going into the debate. Voters said they were worried he would not act presidential, or that he would be too ‘aggressive’ in going after Biden. 

More than half of the focus group later said Trump exceeded their expectations. Several said the debate format, in which a candidate’s microphone was muted when it wasn’t their turn to speak, ultimately helped Trump maintain composure and control.

‘I think they meant to help Biden but they ended up helping Trump,’ one voter said. 

‘Because they shut him up.’ 

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Trump rips Biden for not firing generals after botched Afghanistan withdrawal: ‘Incompetence’

Former President Trump blasted President Biden in CNN’s presidential debate on Thursday for not firing any of the generals who oversaw the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan that left 13 U.S. soldiers dead. 

‘He was so bad with Afghanistan,’ Trump said during the CNN presidential debate on Thursday night. ‘It was such a horrible embarrassment. Most embarrassing moment in the history of our country that when Putin watched that and he saw the incompetence.’

‘He should have fired those generals like I fired the one that you mentioned and so he’s got no love lost but he should have fired those generals,’ Trump continued. ‘No general got fired for the most embarrassing moment in the history of our country, Afghanistan, where we left billions of dollars of equipment behind. We lost 13 beautiful soldiers and 38 soldiers were obliterated.’

Trump went on to say that the world is ‘blowing up’ under President Biden.

‘You ever heard so much malarkey in my whole life?’ Biden responded.

Biden went on to defend his pullout of Afghanistan and blasted Trump for his positions on the war in Ukraine and comments made about Russian President Vladimir Putin.

‘This guy hasn’t fired anybody,’ Trump said at another point in the debate.

‘He should have fired every military man that was involved with the Afghan horror show,’ Trump said. ‘The most embarrassing moment in the history of our country. He didn’t fire. Did you fire anybody? Did you fire anybody that’s on the border? That’s allowed us to have the worst border in the history of the world. Did anybody get fired for allowing 18 million people, many from prisons, many from mental institutions?’

Fox News Digital reached out to the Biden campaign for comment but did not receive a response.

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