Biden tells Democratic governors he needs more sleep and plans to stop scheduling events after 8 p.m.

By Edward-Isaac Dovere, CNN

Updated 4:54 PM EDT, Thu July 4, 2024

(CNN) President Joe Biden told Democratic governors during a meeting at the White House on Wednesday that part of his plan going forward is to stop scheduling events after 8 p.m. so that he can get more sleep, according to three sources briefed on his comments.

The remarks, first reported by The New York Times, came as the 81-year-old Biden sought to reassure a group of more than 20 state leaders about his ability to defeat former President Donald Trump in November and govern effectively for another four years.

Biden's comment left several of the governors in the room frustrated, sources told CNN, and is one of the reasons that some of the participants have been rankled by the statement of loyalty and enthusiasm from them distributed by the Biden campaign on Thursday.

The White House did not immediately comment about what the president said. A Biden campaign aide argued that, as well as doing debate prep in the week after his two trips to Europe, Biden was engaged in hours of official work in addition to the hours of campaign work.

"President (George W.) Bush went to bed at 9, and President (Barack) Obama made dinner at 6:30," said Biden campaign spokesperson Kevin Munoz. "Normal presidents strike a balance, and so does Joe Biden. Hardly the same rigor as Donald Trump, who spends half of his day ranting on Truth Social about plans that would cause a recession and the other half golfing."

Biden also made a joke to the governors that didn't go over well: "I'm fine

I don't know about my brain, though." Jen O'Malley Dillon, Biden's campaign chairwoman, said the president was "clearly making a joke and then said, 'All kidding aside.'"

In the wake of Biden's poor performance during CNN's presidential debate last week, some Democrats have begun to call for the president to drop out of the race, leaving the White House scrambling to convince skeptics within the party and voters. In the days after, administration officials have provided confusing and conflicting explanations as they attempted to spin a performance that exacerbated voters' concerns about Biden's age.

Following the meeting, Govs. Wes Moore of Maryland, Kathy Hochul of New York and Tim Walz of Minnesota painted a positive picture of the meeting during a news conference, adding that Biden is "all in" and "in it to win it."

In response to a reporter's question, Walz dismissed any concerns about Biden's age and health, saying the president is "fit for office."

Biden, the oldest president in US history, has faced questions around his age and health for years. They came to a head during the debate, when he was hoarse and at times unintelligible, leaving Trump --- who is only three years younger than Biden --- to appear more fit. The majority of debate watchers deemed the former president as the winner of the stand-off, according to a CNN poll.

And Biden's debate performance opened the floodgates for more scrutiny and reporting on the president's health, with sources describing a decline in his mental fitness.

The New York Times reported earlier this week that the president's "lapses" have increased and grown more worrisome, with a source telling the Times that Biden's six-day debate preparations at Camp David didn't start before 11 a.m. and that the president was given time to nap each day.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre sidestepped a question during Wednesday's briefing about whether the president takes daily afternoon naps following the Times' reporting. But she offered jet lag and travel fatigue as an explanation for Biden's poor debate performance after previously chalking it up to a cold.

Amid increasing pressure to consider dropping out of the race and growing concern whether he can serve another term, CNN has previously reported that Biden has privately expressed that the next stretch of days will be critical for whether he can save his reelection bid.

This story has been updated with additional details.

CNN's Kaanita Iyer, Jack Forrest, MJ Lee and Betsy Klein contributed to this report.

Since I assumed the position of Minister of National Security, one of the highest goals I have set for myself is to worsen the conditions of the terrorists in the prisons, and to reduce their rights to the minimum required by law. This is what I committed to my voters and the people of Israel back in the elections, when I announced that I would claim the position.

Everything published about the abominable conditions of these vile murderers in prison was true. They ruled the prisons without question, and did whatever they pleased.

In the last year, before the war broke out, I waged a war of attrition to carry out the long-awaited reform of their conditions, and to fulfill the mandate I received from the public. The central organization that fought my attempts to lead this important reform, and even managed to prevent it, is the Shin Bet, under the command of Ronan Bar. It stood on its hind legs, and convinced the prime minister time and again that worsening the conditions of the terrorists would lead to an escalation, an explosion, the burning of the Middle East . What not.

On the seventh of October we discovered the bitter truth: our enemies do not need any excuse to massacre us, and lead to "escalation". They have one reason why they do this: our existence as Jews.

At the same time, after the outbreak of the war, I was able to finally carry out the long-awaited reform. The conditions of the terrorists in the prison were reduced to a minimum: we stopped the financial deposits, canceled the canteens for the terrorists, removed the electrical devices from the cells, stopped the terrorists' promenade, dramatically reduced the terrorists' stay in the showers, canceled the speaker's status, stopped the indulgent food menu that was converted into a minimal menu, and in short - We completely stopped the summer camp conditions. Terrorists who are currently released from prison testify that they will never want to return to Israeli prison. The prisons of the State of Israel are no longer a sad joke.

As part of the war, the army made many arrests of terrorists and wanted terrorists in Yosh, along with many terrorists who were brought from Gaza. A large part of the detainees were housed in a military camp, Sde Yemen, where they were held by the army. The IDF and the Shin Bet rushed to fold, and to announce that the conditions of incarceration at the site would be examined, and that the number of prisoners held at the site would be reduced. In practice, a situation has arisen in which due to the harsh living conditions of the prisoners (we are talking about despicable terrorists, yes?), there are now 1,500 vacant prison places in the Yemeni field.

Even in the prisons that are under the responsibility of the Security Service, where many terrorists were taken in, overcrowding was created. But I never thought of releasing terrorists from prison because they are crowded.

And this is the core of the dispute between me and Shin Bet chief Ronan Bar: Ronan Bar claims that the conditions of the terrorists in prison, including overcrowding, look bad in the world, and may lead to escalation. And I claim that if any other country in the world were to do what was done to us, it would do many times more against those terrorists - and put one big line on all those who cluck their tongues. Are they crowded? Next time they will think twice before they go out to slaughter, rape and loot

And as for the Shin Bet's claims according to which the Shin Bet and the Ministry of National Security did nothing to establish and add new prisons - this is nonsense, which was fully promoted by the leftist media.
These are the exact facts: the Shevash has already begun an accelerated construction project of new prisons, and since October 2,500 new prisons have been added. Another project began last April, and it includes the construction of 936 additional prisons that is currently underway, when in addition to the emergency construction during the war, the Shev S. will complete by the end of the year a construction project of about 1,200 prison places throughout the country. All this, alongside the fact that since the beginning of the war, the Israel Defense Forces has captured a record number of over 5,000 terrorists arrested by the security forces.

It is very possible that even after the addition of the new prisons is completed, the many terrorists will still be overcrowded in prison. I have already proposed a much simpler solution, of enacting the death penalty for terrorists, which would solve the overcrowding issue - legislation to which the Shin Bet is also vehemently opposed. But until this legislation, with God's help, is passed, nothing will happen if the No'Hava terrorist, who burned a baby girl in October 7, It will be crowded in the prison cell where he died.

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