Biden Blames Exhaustion From Global Travel For Debate Performance

US President Joe Biden has put his recent poor performance at last week's presidential debate down to jet leg brought about from two trips to Europe in June.

President Biden has faced huge criticism following this televised debate with White House candidate Donald Trump last week, with one House of Representatives and fellow Democrat urging him to withdraw his bid to be re-elected as US President.

At a campaign event in McLean, Virginia, Mr Biden admitted that his first debate with Donald Trump did not go well.

The president put this shaky performance down to exhaustion following two separate trips to France and Italy in the space of two weeks last month. He flew overnight from the G7 summit in Bari, Italy, to appear at an LA fundraiser with former President Barack Obama on June 15, before returning to Washington DC the next day.

Mr Biden then spent 6 days at Camp David, making preparations for the debate. 

Biden who spoke at the campaign fundraiser without the aid of a teleprompter, said: "I didn't have my best night, but the fact is that you know, I wasn’t very smart". 

"I decided to travel around the world a couple times, going through around 100 time zones before the debate". 

Biden added: "I didn’t listen to my staff and came back and nearly fell asleep on stage. That's no excuse but it is an explanation". 

Officials from the White House blamed Mr Biden's stuttering performance at the debate to a cold that he had been suffering with. However, Mr Biden did not mention being ill during the fundraiser event.

According to a recent Reuters/Ipsos poll, one in three Democrats feel that Biden should withdraw from the election race following the debate. However, no prominent elected Democrat does any better than Mr Biden in any set match up with Donald Trumo,

This poll also states that Mr Trump and Mr Biden maintain the support of 40% of registered voters, which would indicate that Joe Biden has not lost major ground since the debate.