Joe Biden will sit for a televised interview with NBC’s Lester Holt on Monday, amid the Republican party’s national convention and just days after Donald Trump survived an assassination attempt at a rally in Pennsylvania. It also comes amid continuing questions over the US president’s ability to perform, after a disastrous debate against the former president in June.
What time is Biden’s interview tonight?
The interview with Biden will air as a special on NBC on Monday, 15 July at 9pm ET.
How to watch Biden’s interview
Biden’s full interview with Holt will air in prime time, with portions first available during NBC’s nightly newscast at 6.30pm ET.
It will be available for streaming on the network’s NBC News Now platform. A transcript of the interview will also be available online.
The president’s interview was originally scheduled as part of an Austin campaign visit, but will now take place in the White House after Biden canceled his trip in the wake of Saturday’s shooting.
What Biden said about the attempted assassination of Trump
On Sunday, Biden gave a prime-time address from the Oval Office calling for national unity and for the country to reject “extremism and fury”.
“There is no place in America for this kind of violence – for any violence. Ever. Period. No exception,” the president said in the six-minute speech.
Biden’s plea for Americans to “cool it down” came as Trump said that he would use his speech at the Republican national convention this week to bring “the whole country, even the whole world, together”.
The Biden campaign has suspended a $50m advertising blitz and quickly pulled television attack ads, in moves consistent with Biden’s Sunday night plea to “lower the temperature in our politics”. Biden also cancelled a planned speech on Monday at the Lyndon Johnson library in Austin to mark the 60th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act, while Kamala Harris followed suit by postponing a Tuesday stop in Palm Beach, Florida, where she had been expected to talk about abortion.
What else to know
The interview is Biden’s first on television since Trump survived an assassination attempt at a rally in Pennsylvania, which left several rally-goers injured and two dead, including the shooting suspect.
It will also be Biden’s second appearance on a major news network following his disastrous performance at the first presidential debate on 27 June. Biden sat down with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos on 5 July, in an effort to dispel the growing perception that he lacks the acuity to continue in office for another four years. The appearance was part of a wider media blitz by the president, which included two radio interviews with stations in Philadelphia and Milwaukee.
The interview takes place as Republicans gather in Milwaukee to formally nominate Donald Trump as their presidential candidate. Trump also picked JD Vance, the Ohio senator, as his pick for vice-president today.
The 2024 Democratic national convention, meanwhile, is scheduled to be held from 19-22 August in Chicago, Illinois.
Source: US Politics - theguardian.com
