Joe Biden finally broke cover on Thursday afternoon after spending seven days holed up at Camp David preparing for tonight night’s debate against former president Donald Trump.
Biden took Marine One from the presidential retreat in the Catoctin mountains to Joint Base Andrews at 1.40pm, where he boarded Air Force One en-route to Atlanta, Georgia, when the first election debate will be held at CNN‘s headquarters.
The debate, at 9pm ET, is one of the most anticipated in history, with 61% of American voters expected to tune in.
The president, who waved from the tarmac as he was boarding the plane, was spotted wearing a brand new pair of black Cole Haan ‘ØriginalGrand Energy’ Oxfords – which for $200 give the wearer ‘bouncy comfort’ with ‘all-day responsive cushioning’.
And arriving in Georgia at 3.40pm, Biden certainly had a spring in his step – hugging failed Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams and greeting other party officials.
President Joe Biden broke cover Thursday afternoon after spending seven days holed up at Camp David preparing for tonight’s debate against former President Donald Trump
President Joe Biden was sporting a new pair of kicks, which DailyMail.com identified as Cole Haan’s ØriginalGrand Energy Twin Oxfords
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On board Air Force One, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre didn’t divulge how the president spent his week – pointing to the Hatch Act – which bars her from talking about political campaign business.
‘The president is president wherever he is,’ she said. ‘He’s able to do the job wherever he is,’ Jean-Pierre reiterated.
‘And I’ll say this, whenever there’s an opportunity for the president to speak directly to [the] American public – in this instance it will be millions of Americans watching – he takes that opportunity very seriously.’
The debate could be a make-or-break moment for the 81-year-old, with Americans having to decide whether to give the oldest president in history a second term, or give Donald Trump, 78, a second term.
The debate will be a test of the president’s mental fitness as he’ll be onstage with only a pad, pencil and a bottle of water.
He’ll be without the assist of the teleprompter and will not be allowed to chat with aides during commercial breaks.
The debate will mark the first time Biden has been in the same room as Trump since their October 2020 debate in Nashville, Tennessee.
President Joe Biden waves to reporters as he walks from Marine One to Air Force One Thursday afternoon at Joint Base Andrews
President Joe Biden (right) gives a hug to failed Georgia Democratic gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams (left) as he arrives to Atlanta, Georgia Thursday for the first presidential debate
President Joe Biden boards Air Force One – using the shorter set of stairs – as he heads to Atlanta, Georgia for the first presidential debate, taking place at CNN’s headquarters
JUNE 20: President Joe Biden waves as he walks to board Air Force One in Dover, Delaware after spending the Juneteenth holiday at his Rehoboth Beach home. He then flew to Camp David where he spent a week prepping for Thursday night’s CNN debate
When asked how Biden was feeling about that, Jean-Pierre tried to stay tight-lipped.
‘Look, I’m not going to speak directly to tonight and directly to his main adversary this evening,’ she said Thursday.
‘But look, you know, this president he likes to fight. He likes to fight for the American people. He believes in standing up for the American people. And you see him do that over and over again, Jean-Pierre added.
She pointed to Biden’s performance at the last two State of the Union addresses – where he went back and forth with Republican lawmakers in the room – performances that were generally praised.
If Biden has that kind of performance, Trump already has an excuse – he made a wild accusation last week that the president would be ‘pumped up’ on cocaine.
A reporter asked the press secretary about that charge on board Air Force One.
‘And what is the response to former President Trump’s claims that President Biden may be taking something tonight to boost his performance?’ the journalist said.
Reporters are using Georgia Institute of Technology’s McCamish Pavilion to serve as a filing center and the spin room for Thursday night’s CNN debate
‘I don’t think I should dignify that with an answer,’ Jean-Pierre responded.
Campaign spokesperson Lauren Hitt added in an email to DailyMail.com that the cocaine charges were Trump and his allies ‘resorting to desperate, obviously false lies.’
Each campaign has made hay about the other candidate’s gaffes and stumbles, but debate experts say that it’s Biden who really can’t afford to have a senior moment.
While Trump has made verbal flubs of late – this month the White House has had to respond to a trio of what Jean-Pierre has dubbed ‘cheap fakes’ – viral videos that appeared to show Biden wandering off or freezing.
There was the video in Italy that appeared to show Biden looking in the wrong direction during an event with paratroopers – a visual that wasn’t helped by Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni guiding him back to pose for a picture.
In reality, Biden was engaging with paratroopers who had just landed off-screen.
In another video, at a Juneteenth celebration, Biden stares, smiles and watches the musical performance while other attendees danced.
President Joe Biden was accused of ‘freezing’ at the end of his A-list fundraiser in Los Angeles earlier this month, with former President Barack Obama walking him offstage
Jean-Pierre pushed back in a press briefing asking why that was a crime.
‘The president stood there listening to the music and he didn’t dance. Excuse me, I did not know not dancing was a mental – was a health issue,’ she said at the June 17th briefing.
‘That is a weird thing to actually flag when if you if you look at the people who around him – if you look at the expanded video of the people who around him, they were not, they weren’t – there were some folks who were not dancing either,’ she added.
A third ‘cheap fake’ occurred when Biden seemed to pause before leaving the stage at his A-list fundraiser in Los Angeles with George Clooney, Julia Roberts, Jimmy Kimmel and former President Barack Obama.
The much younger Obama walked Biden, his former vice president, off the stage.
Before the cheap fakes era, Biden fell off his bike in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware and tripped up the stairs of Air Force One on several occasions.
He now mostly boards the larger Air Force One taking the shorter set of stairs.
Biden also tripped over a sandbag during a commencement in Colorado last summer.
The Biden campaign has responded by highlighting the moments when Trump, just 3.5 years younger, has seemingly shown his age.
‘Here is a montage of Donald Trump getting confused, lost, wandering off, and waving to nobody,’ an X post from the @BidenHQ account said last week.
President Joe Biden’s campaign shared a video Thursday of former President Donald Trump ‘getting confused’ after a trio of viral videos showed Biden ‘freezing’ and wandering away
President Donald Trump’s fitness was questioned in June 2020 when he tiptoed down a ramp at West Point – a mini-scandal that was dubbed ‘ramp-gate’
The campaign then shared a 2.5 minute-long video of clips of Trump, from during his presidency, departing events before he’s supposed to, or awkwardly standing in place when he’s supposed to be exiting.
The battle over who’s more fit to be president started four years before.
During the 2020 campaign cycle, video of Trump went viral when he tip-toed down a ramp during an appearance at West Point that June.
That led to similar questions about Trump’s fitness, with him having to deny he had ‘Parkinson’s’ disease.
‘I stayed there for hours. And what do I do? I get publicity about walking down a ramp,’ said an aghast Trump to The Wall Street Journal. ‘And does he have Parkinson’s? I don’t think so.’
In an initial tweet about the incident – which took on the name ‘ramp-gate’ – Trump described the ramp as being ‘very long & steep,’ adding that it ‘had no handrail and, most importantly, was very slippery.’