Joe Biden's performance in the debate concerned much of the Democrats, both in the media and those facing the polls across the country. The president appeared disoriented and incoherent at times, unleashing a flood of theories about his candidacy. A few days later, the president found an excuse to justify his performance at that CNN podium.

Just minutes after the debate ended, prominent Democratic figures in the media began to discuss the possibility of the current Commander-in-Chief stepping aside and declining his candidacy, of course, with the aim of avoiding a major disaster in November. They even revealed conversations held with party figures, many of whom would celebrate the emergence of an alternative candidate.

In this context, the president sought to shield himself from his performance against Trump and cited his travels abroad as the main cause of his much-criticized performance.

"I almost fell asleep on stage."

As reported by The Hill, the president spoke to a group of donors in Virginia and recalled the night of June 27, when the first of two scheduled debates between the president and Donald Trump took place.

"I wasn't very smart. I decided to travel around the world a couple of times ... shortly before the debate. I didn't listen to my staff (...) and then I almost fell asleep on stage," Biden said, later adding that it was not an excuse, but an "explanation."

However, despite the statements of the still presumptive Democratic nominee, his trips abroad ended on June 14, six days before he began his week of preparation at Camp David, where he was meeting with a good part of his staff to fine-tune his strategy for the debate.

"Excuses that simply aren't convincing."

Nicholas Kristof, a longtime columnist for The New York Times, who after the debate publicly called for Biden to decline his candidacy, criticized the president's comments and called them implausible.

"It is useless for the White House to offer excuses that are simply not convincing. The president returned from Europe 12 days before the debate and spent a week at Camp David preparing for it. I don't know what happened at the debate, but it wasn't jet lag," he noted on his X account, previously known as Twitter.

He was joined by Mark Knoller, a former CBS White House correspondent, who was also unconvinced by the president's rhetoric.

"Round trips to France and Italy hardly qualify as 'trips around the world.' And even if they were, a staff of hundreds of people facilitates presidential door-to-door travel at every stop. Not to forget the beds on Air Force One," he wrote, also in X.