President Joe Biden on Friday dismissed concerns about his age, his mental acuity and polls showing him losing his re-election bid, saying in a prime-time interview that his sharpness is tested every day while he is “running the world”. He vowed to drop out only if “the Lord Almighty” told him to.

During a 22-minute interview with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos, which aired unedited, Biden, 81, said there was no need for him to submit to neurological or cognitive testing. He said he simply did not believe the polls showing him losing. And asked how he would feel if former President Donald Trump were elected in November, he brushed off the question.

“I’ll feel as long as I gave it my all and I did the goodest job as I know I can do, that’s what this is about,” Biden said in an interview that was intended to assuage growing concerns about his age following last Thursday’s debate. But with him speaking in a hoarse voice and remaining defiant throughout, there was little indication that the interview would do much to stanch the bleeding during the deepest crisis of a long political career.

Again and again, Biden told Stephanopoulos that voters should consider his accomplishments in office.

“Who’s going to be able to hold Nato together like me?” he said. “Who’s going to be able to be in a position where I’m able to keep the Pacific Basin in a position where, at least we’re checkmating China now? Who’s going to do that? Who has that reach?”

Biden waved off “hypothetical” questions about whether he would step aside for another Democrat if people he respects say that he can’t win in autumn. “Look, I mean, if the Lord Almighty came down and said, ‘Joe, get out of the race’, I’d get out of the race, but the Lord Almighty’s not coming down,” Biden told Stephanopoulos. He dismissed concerns by Democratic lawmakers as overblown.

Asked if he truly believed he was not trailing Trump in the race, he said that “all the pollsters I talk to say it’s a tossup — it’s a tossup”. And he said he was willing to take the risk that he was wrong about that.

“I don’t think anybody’s more qualified to be President or win this race than me,” he told Stephanopoulos.

The fact that the President was confronted with questions about his mental competency underscored the depth of crisis he is facing after the debate in Atlanta last week raised questions about his candidacy.

A growing number of donors and several lawmakers have called for him to exit the race.

The President challenged that reality on Friday, insisting that “the vast majority are not where those folks are”. And he said no one around him has suggested that he needed to submit to an independent neurological examination.

“No. No one said I had to. They said I’m good,” he said. “Look, I have a cognitive test every single day. Every day I’ve had tests, everything I do. Not only in my campaign, but I’m running the world. And that sounds like hyperbole, but we are the essential nation in the world.”

Biden consented to the ABC interview — one of the few that he has given to news organisations during his presidency — and travelled to Madison, Wisconsin, for a campaign rally in the hopes that strong performances could help rescue his teetering presidential campaign.

New York Times News Service