Seemingly crumbling under immense pressure to undo the damage from a debate performance that showcased his plummeting mental acuity, President Biden's Fourth of July was a veritable fireworks show of bewildering statements and derailed trains of thought -- that saw Biden calling himself a black woman who was elected president as a child. The grand finale to the destructive holiday-weekend display could come at 8pm ET tonight, when Biden appears in a primetime, sit-down interview on ABC News.

Thursday's dark comedy started with an appearance on Philadelphia's WURD radio, which features a format categorized as "urban talk." Having already boasted about appointing the first black woman to the Supreme Court and selecting the first black woman as vice president, Biden short-circuited and said, "I'm proud to be, as I said, the first vice president...the first black woman to serve with a black president."

In the same interview, Biden completely garbled his reminiscing about John F. Kennedy, Jr serving as a barrier-breaking inspiration to Biden's younger self:

"I remember, as a Catholic kid growing up up in an area where we didn't like, Catholics didn't get -- I'm the first president to be elected statewide in the state of Delaware when I was a kid. Well, you know, I was, I looked at John Kennedy and said, 'Well, he got elected. Why can't I get elected?

Seemingly crumbling under immense pressure to undo the damage from a debate performance that showcased his plummeting mental acuity, President Biden's Fourth of July was a veritable fireworks show of bewildering statements and derailed trains of thought -- that saw Biden calling himself a black woman who was elected president as a child. The grand finale to the destructive holiday-weekend display could come at 8pm ET tonight, when Biden appears in a primetime, sit-down interview on ABC News.

Thursday's dark comedy started with an appearance on Philadelphia's WURD radio, which features a format categorized as "urban talk." Having already boasted about appointing the first black woman to the Supreme Court and selecting the first black woman as vice president, Biden short-circuited and said, "I'm proud to be, as I said, the first vice president...the first black woman to serve with a black president."

In the same interview, Biden completely garbled his reminiscing about John F. Kennedy, Jr serving as a barrier-breaking inspiration to Biden's younger self:

"I remember, as a Catholic kid growing up up in an area where we didn't like, Catholics didn't get -- I'm the first president to be elected statewide in the state of Delaware when I was a kid. Well, you know, I was, I looked at John Kennedy and said, 'Well, he got elected. Why can't I get elected?

Later, in remarks to military families at the White House, Biden twice showcased another of his chronic symptoms, as he started a train of thought, only to quickly abandon it. The first example came as he attempted to trot out the disputed allegation that then-President Trump called dead American soldiers in a French World War I cemetery "losers" and "suckers." After his anecdote stalled, Biden tried recovering with one of his all-purpose rhetorical crutches, shouting, "We gotta just remember WHO IN THE HELL WE ARE...We're the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA!"

Another dead-end sentence came as he seemed to be making an exaggerated claim about putting himself in danger alongside service members in foreign conflicts:

In another radio interview meant to reach black audiences, Biden appeared on the nationally syndicated Earl Ingram Show. "Despite the low-pressure nature of the interview, the president at times spoke haltingly as he delivered his rapid-fire answers," the New York Times reported. "In the 17-minute interview, he sometimes stopped himself in the middle of an answer." For example, in the middle of a sentence about Trump's proposed tariffs, Biden abandoned the venture, saying, "...anyway, just, I don't want to get too wrapped up in it, really."

With his flub-filled Fourth in the books, Biden's next major opportunity to shore up voters' perception of this mental soundness comes tonight, when appears in his first sit-down interview since last week's debate disaster. The interview with ABC's George Stephanopoulos will be recorded during the day amid Biden campaign stops in Wisconsin and then aired in an 8pm ET "primetime special."

To counter suspicions that the network will edit the interview to Biden's benefit, ABC has committed to releasing a transcript of the entire interview sometime today or this evening. As we noted yesterday:

"Readers will naturally view the idea of a Stephanopoulos interview with justifiable wariness of soft-pitch questions and friendly editing. However, we're in a different political world than last week...

Given the debate-triggered earthquake that's altered the leftist landscape, Stephanopoulos will likely feel significant pressure to act something like a real journalist, for once."

As Biden staggers from one risky public appearance to the next, a white-knuckled Team Biden is surely sweating next week's schedule: Biden will host a three-day NATO summit in Washington that starts on Tuesday. As part of that event, he will conduct a rare solo press conference, which could well prove the most treacherous challenge he's faced since last week's debate -- and perhaps even more so.
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