President Biden, on the day after the most consequential political performance of his decades-long career, aimed to address Democratic Party panic after his disastrous debate performance in his first faceoff with former President Trump.

“I know I’m not a young man, to state the obvious,” Biden, who at 81 is the oldest president in the nation’s history, told cheering supporters at a Friday afternoon rally in the crucial battleground state of North Carolina.

“Folks, I don’t walk as easy as I used to. I don’t speak as smoothly as I used to. I don’t debate as well as I used to,” Biden acknowledged. “But I know what I do know. I know how to tell the truth. I know right from wrong. And I know how to do this job. I know how to get things done. And I know, like millions of Americans know, when you get knocked down you get back up.”

And the president, pointing to his 2024 rematch with Trump, emphasized, “I would not be running again if I did not believe with all my heart and soul that I can do this job.”

A RASPY BIDEN DELIVERS A HALTING DEBATE PERFORMANCE IN SHOWDOWN WITH TRUMP

As Biden worked to calm his party, his campaign repeatedly highlighted what it described as record-breaking fundraising both during and after the debate as it seemingly aimed to deflect from a brutal narrative coming out of the showdown in Atlanta.

WHAT THE NEW YORK TIMES IS ASKING BIDEN TO DO

And Biden’s campaign on Friday morning announced that it hauled in $14 million in fundraising Thursday and Friday morning, which it highlighted as “a sign of strength of our grassroots support.”

Struggling with a raspy voice and delivering rambling answers, Biden struggled during portions of the debate. The president did sharpen his answers as the debate progressed, calling out his Republican predecessor in the White House for numerous falsehoods throughout the 90-minute debate.

President Biden (right) and former President Trump participate in the CNN Presidential Debate in Atlanta.  (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

But Biden’s uneven and, at times, halting performance grabbed the vast majority of headlines from the debate and sparked a new round of calls from political pundits and publications and some Democrats for the president to step aside as the party’s standard-bearer. Top Biden allies pushed back against such talk as they defended the president and targeted Trump for lying throughout the debate.

And the Biden campaign spotlighted that the 11 p.m. ET hour Thursday night — the one hour after the debate — “was the single best hour of fundraising since the campaign’s launch in April 2023.”

WHAT BIDEN SAID AT HIS FIRST POST-DEBATE RALLY

A Biden campaign adviser, who asked to remain anonymous to speak more freely, told Fox News the fundraising is “an important sign that there’s a bit of disconnect between national narratives and where supporters are.”

Following his rally in Raleigh, North Carolina, the president and first lady Jill Biden traveled to New York City, where they joined superstars Elton John and Katy Perry and top Democratic Party elected officials to unveil the city’s Stonewall National Monument Visitor Center. The grand opening was timed to kick off New York City’s Pride weekend and mark the 55th anniversary of the historic rebellion that marked a turning point for LGBTQ+liberation.

President Biden speaks during the grand-opening ceremony for the Stonewall National Monument Visitor Center Friday, June 28, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Julia Nikhinson)

Biden then headlined a campaign fundraiser Friday evening in New York City that his campaign touted was “the largest LGBTQ fundraising event in political history.”

On Saturday, the president was scheduled to attend two more top dollar fundraisers in the wealthy communities of East Hampton, New York, and Red Bank, New Jersey.

“Biden‘s record grassroots fundraising from the day of the debate is critical. It helps blunt the criticism from Biden’s performance,” veteran political strategist and Democratic National Committee member Maria Cardona told Fox News.

Cardona, a top Biden supporter, said spotlighting the fundraising “reminds Democrats that there is enthusiasm for the president and urgency to make sure that the liar and criminal Donald Trump doesn’t get close to the Oval Office.”

A Democratic strategist and presidential campaign veteran said team Biden’s focus on fundraising “is their best and maybe their only card to play.”

But the strategist, who was granted anonymity to speak more freely, emphasized “there’s no amount of money that can reverse the damage that was done at the debate and the president confirming everyone’s worst suspicions and fears about him and his age and not being up to the job. Period.” 

But Trump campaign senior adviser Brian Hughes discounted the fundraising.

“As of last week, the Biden campaign has spent $100 million on cable, TV and radio. They’ve spent money on a bloated organization. Yet President Trump’s lead has grown in battleground states, and now we see polling and enthusiasm on the ground putting Virginia and Minnesota in play for the GOP nominee for the first time in many election cycles,” Hughes told Fox News.

The Trump campaign, enjoying the post-debate narrative, had no need to immediately emphasize its own fundraising.

But the campaign told Fox News Friday afternoon it brought in $8 million the day of the debate.

Republican National Committee Chair Michael Whatley, a top Trump ally, said hours earlier in an interview on Fox News’ “Fox and Friends” that “the donations have been coming in, very strong, very steady. And that’s because the people saw his positioning last night during the debate. The donations, especially the small dollar online donations that we’re getting in right now, are really a reflection of the enthusiasm that the president brings to the campaign.”

And Trump campaign senior adviser Chris LaCivita told Fox News Digital Thursday night the debate performance was “added rocket fuel” to the former president’s fundraising and in “motivating the troops.”

Dan Eberhart, an oil drilling CEO and a prominent Republican donor, is raising money for Trump after earlier supporting Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in the GOP presidential nomination race. 

“The donors I have texted with are now more confident of a Trump win,” Eberhart said. “For any donors that were still on the sideline, last night was the push they needed to put their chips on Trump.”

Get the latest updates from the 2024 campaign trail, exclusive interviews and more at our Fox News Digital election hub.

The Supreme Court’s decision in Fischer vs. United States, which came down among a bevy of blockbuster opinions Friday, was much anticipated for its potential impact on the prosecutions of hundreds of Jan. 6 rioters as well as former President Trump, who was charged under the same law. The court’s ruling was largely of a piece with the conservative justices’ proclivity for narrowing criminal laws they perceive as imprecise and likely to trap the unwary. The majority opinion by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. contends that the Justice Department’s position on the obstruction statute at hand would “criminalize a broad swath of prosaic conduct.”

The decision is of course good news for Joseph Fischer, a Jan. 6 defendant who moved to dismiss one of the charges against him. Fischer barged into the Capitol on that day and was also charged with assaulting a federal officer, among other offenses. But the court held that he could not be charged under a federal law against obstructing an official proceeding for joining the melee that delayed the certification of the 2020 presidential election, ruling that the law is limited to conduct affecting the integrity or availability of records that could be evidence in an official proceeding.

Trump will certainly try to argue that the court’s decision also requires dismissal of two counts against him under the same law in the federal Jan. 6 case. Many of the rioters were, like Fischer, charged under the statute and could benefit from the ruling as well. But the decision isn’t likely to favor the majority of the marauders, and it’s even less likely to help Trump.

In the case of the rioters, a study in Just Security persuasively suggests that even if the statute is unavailable to charge them in the wake of the Fischer decision, the government can still prosecute the same conduct in other ways.

The ruling probably won’t be useful to Trump for another reason.

The lawyerly debate in Fischer comes down to the meaning of the word “otherwise.” Following a section of the law that prohibits altering or mutilating a record, the law goes on to criminalize conduct that “otherwise obstructs, influences or impedes any official proceeding.“ The question is whether the law thereby applies to any obstruction of an official proceeding or only to acts that affect the integrity or availability of records to be used in the proceeding.

But Trump’s alleged conduct certainly affected the integrity or availability of records, namely the valid slates of presidential electors. His purported scheme was designed to undermine the legal impact of those slates and replace them with fraudulent certificates forged at the behest of his inner circle.

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson’s concurring opinion in the case underscores this point. After endorsing the majority’s understanding of “otherwise,” she concludes that Fischer might still be charged under the statute because the “official proceeding” in question “plainly used certain records, documents, or objects — including, among others, those relating to the electoral votes themselves.”

Jackson’s hypothetical analysis concerns Fischer himself, but it seems she also means it to encompass the conduct of the former president. While Trump is not alleged to have destroyed or altered a document, he is alleged to have “otherwise” impaired the legal effectiveness of the certificates.

The dissenting opinion in the case, authored by Justice Amy Coney Barrett and joined by Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan, is an interesting postscript. Barrett argues that the government’s reading of the text of the statute might be expansive but is in keeping with its plain meaning. The opinion is among those suggesting Barrett, a Trump appointee, is staking out the center of the court in certain important cases.

But the most pressing question raised by this decision and the presidential immunity opinion expected Monday is whether they will undermine the various criminal charges against the former president. The bottom line in this case is that it shouldn’t, and I don’t think it will. Trump will surely move to dismiss the charges on this basis, but I expect U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan to reject that argument, which would allow the case to proceed as charged — unless, of course, the defendant returns to the White House and makes the entire prosecution go away.

Harry Litman is the host of the “Talking Feds” podcast and the Talking San Diego speaker series. @harrylitman

At former President Trump’s first rally since the presidential debate, he argued the nation’s “biggest problem” is not President Biden’s age and “decline,” but his destructive policies.

Speaking to a crowd of more than 1,000 at Historic Greenbrier Farms in Chesapeake, Virginia, Friday, Trump took a victory lap after the first 2024 presidential debate.

Trump told supporters every voter should ask one question before heading to the polls Nov. 5.

“The question every voter should be asking themselves today is not whether Joe Biden can survive a 90-minute debate performance, but whether America can survive four more years of crooked Joe Biden in the White House,” he said.

TRUMP, BIDEN SPAR OVER GOLF HANDICAPS AS THEY TRY TO CONVINCE VOTERS THEY ARE NOT TOO OLD FOR THE PRESIDENCY

Former President Trump, a Republican presidential candidate, shakes hands with Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin during a rally at Greenbrier Farms June 28, 2024, in Chesapeake, Va.  (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

“Remember, the biggest problem for our country is not Joe Biden’s personal decline,” Trump said. “It’s that Joe Biden’s policies are causing America’s decline at a level that we’ve never seen before.

“That’s why this November, the people of Virginia and the people of America are going to tell crooked Joe Biden, ‘You’re fired.’”

Biden said he is committed to winning the election, brushing aside mounting calls from prominent Democrats to step aside following his disastrous debate against Republican Donald Trump. (Cornell Watson/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

President Biden addressed his campaign performance at a rally in Raleigh, North Carolina, saying, “I don’t debate as well as I used to.

BIDEN’S INNER CIRCLE SILENT AS PARTY REELS FOLLOWING ‘EMBARRASSING’ DEBATE PERFORMANCE

“I know how to do this job. I know how to get things done,” he told a roaring crowd that chanted “Four more years.”

“The choice in this election is simple,” Biden said. “Donald Trump will destroy our democracy. I will defend it.”

President Biden and first lady Jill Biden delivered remarks at a campaign rally at the Jim Graham Building at the North Carolina State Fairgrounds in Raleigh, N.C., June 28, 2024. (Kyle Mazza/Anadolu via Getty Images)

Biden’s age and mental acuity have been at the forefront as voters inch closer to Election Day.

Biden, 81, is the oldest president in history and has faced skepticism from voters and Republican lawmakers about his ability to do the job.

Biden would be 86 at the end of a second term, while Trump would be 82.