President Biden’s campaign remained defiant on Saturday, insisting that he would stay in the race as Mr. Biden hunkered down at his home in Delaware ahead of two Sunday events in Pennsylvania.
The day of rest on Saturday came as it was revealed that the questions asked of Mr. Biden by two radio interviewers this week were provided in advance to the hosts by members of Mr. Biden’s team, according to one of the hosts.
Andrea Lawful-Sanders, the host of “The Source” on WURD in Philadelphia, said Saturday morning on CNN that Biden officials had provided her with a list of eight questions ahead of the interview on Wednesday.
“I got several questions — eight of them,” she told Victor Blackwell, the host of “First of All” on CNN. “And the four that were chosen were the ones that I approved.”
Lauren Hitt, a spokeswoman for the Biden campaign, said campaign aides, not White House officials, had sent a list of preferred topics. She added that campaign officials “do not condition interviews on acceptance of these questions.”
The campaign had scheduled interviews with the hosts of two radio programs with large Black followings as part of the broader effort to reassure Americans of his mental fitness after the debate last month raised deep concerns among many Democrats about his ability to win in November.
After several defections this week, two more Democratic lawmakers, Angie Craig of Minnesota and Scott Peters of California, called on Mr. Biden to step aside and let someone else run against former President Donald J. Trump.
But some prominent Democrats appeared ready to stick by the president’s side. Gov. Gavin Newsom, the California Democrat who has been the subject of speculation as a possible replacement for Mr. Biden, campaigned for the president in Bucks County in Pennsylvania on Saturday.
The president made no public appearances on Saturday. But his campaign released an online video that used footage from a rally Mr. Biden held in Wisconsin on Friday.
“So let me ask you, what do you think?” Mr. Biden asks the crowd. “Do you think I’m too old to restore Roe v. Wade as the law of the land? Do you think I’m too old to ban assault weapons again? Do you think I’m too old to beat Donald Trump?”
The enthusiastic crowd shouts: “No!”
In an interview with ABC News on Friday, the president appeared to refer to his exchanges with the Black radio hosts as among the evidence that he could handle the rigors of the campaign, citing what he said were “10 major events in a row” that he had participated in since the debate.
Ms. Lawful-Sanders said on Saturday that she “never once felt pressured to ask certain questions” from the campaign.
“I chose questions that were most important to the Black and brown communities we serve in Philadelphia,” she said. “Those questions proved to be exactly what Black and brown communities desired.”
Ms. Hitt said that Mr. Biden had provided Americans with “several opportunities to see him unscripted since the debate.” She added that “hosts are always free to ask the questions they think will best inform their listeners.”
No one in the president’s re-election campaign or at the White House revealed that the questions had been provided to the Black hosts, a practice that is widely rejected as inappropriate by journalists, especially in coverage of a politician. And yet, despite knowing the questions in advance, Mr. Biden still stumbled over some of them.
In the interview with Ms. Lawful-Sanders, Mr. Biden stumbled over his words, at one point saying that he was proud to have been “the first Black woman to serve with a Black president.”
During his appearance on “The Earl Ingram Show,” which broadcasts on WAUK in Waukesha, Wis., Mr. Biden responded to a question about why voting matters with a halting and sometimes confusing answer.
“That’s where we always — we gave Donald Trump executive — a power to, to use a system — and it’s just never contemplated by our founders because of the people he appointed to the court,” he said, appearing to stutter several times, a condition he has struggled with since he was a child. “It’s just presidential immunity. He can say that I did this in my capacity as an executive, it may have been wrong, but I did it. But that’s going to hold — because I — and this is the same guy who says that he wants to enact revenge.”
Mr. Blackwell, interviewing the two radio hosts Saturday morning, appeared surprised by the answer about the preapproved questions.
He had asked Ms. Lawful-Sanders about her four questions because he said he had noticed that they were almost identical to the four that Mr. Ingram had asked in his interview with Mr. Biden the same day.
Mr. Ingram, who was on Mr. Blackwell’s show with Ms. Lawful-Sanders, did not dispute her description of how the questions were selected.
“The reason I ask is not a criticism of either of you,” Mr. Blackwell told the two anchors. “It’s just that if the White House is trying now to prove the vim, vigor, acuity of the president, I don’t know how they do that by sending questions first, before the interviews, so that the president knows what’s coming.”
Aides have said two smaller-scale events in Pennsylvania on Sunday — in Philadelphia and outside Harrisburg — are part of efforts to show the president can demonstrate energy and enthusiasm following his listless and meandering performance at the debate.
