Only the ‘Lord Almighty’ could convince me to quit – Biden

US President Joe Biden has said only the “Lord Almighty” could convince him to end his bid for re-election, as he sat for a rare primetime interview in an effort to calm Democratic concern over his candidacy.

Speaking to ABC News on Friday, Mr Biden also declined to take a cognitive test and make the results public in order to reassure voters he is fit to serve another term.

“I have a cognitive test every single day. Every day I have that test – everything I do [is a test],” he told George Stephanopoulos.

The 81-year-old once again pushed back on the idea, aired by some Democratic officials and donors, that he should stand aside for a younger alternative following his disastrous debate with Donald Trump last week.

Throughout the interview, Mr Stephanopoulos pressed the president on his capacity to serve another term, asking Mr Biden if he was in denial about his health and ability to win.

“I don’t think anybody’s more qualified to be president or win this race than me,” Mr Biden said, blaming his poor performance last week on exhaustion and a “bad cold”. In the 22-minute interview, he also:

• Attempted to ease Democratic fears he had lost ground to Donald Trump since the debate, saying pollsters he had spoken to said the race was a “toss-up”
• Rejected suggestions allies may ask him to stand aside. “It’s not going to happen,” he said
• Dismissed repeated questions about what would compel him to leave the race. “If the Lord Almighty came down and said, ‘Joe, get out of the race,’ I’d get out of the race,” he said. “The Lord Almighty’s not coming down”

The president answered questions more clearly than he did on the debate stage last week, but his voice again sounded weak and occasionally hoarse.

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It was a sharp contrast to his performance at a rally in Madison, Wisconsin, on Friday, where an energised Mr Biden acknowledged his disastrous performance in last week’s CNN debate. “Ever since then, there’s been a lot of speculation. What’s Joe going to do?” he told the crowd.

“Here’s my answer. I am running and going to win again,” Mr Biden said, as supporters in the crucial battleground state cheered his name.

The interview and the rally come at a critical moment for his campaign, with donors and Democratic allies considering whether to stick with him.

The campaign is aware that the next few days could make or break his re-election bid, according to various reports in US media, as Mr Biden seeks to regain ground that he lost to his Republican rival Donald Trump following the debate.

As he took the stage at the rally, Mr Biden passed one voter who was holding a sign reading “Pass the torch, Joe”. Another voter who stood outside the venue held a sign that read “Save your legacy, drop out!”.

“I see all these stories that say I’m too old,” Mr Biden said at the rally, before triumphing his record in the White House. “Was I too old to create 15 million jobs?” he said. “Was I too old to erase student debt for five million Americans?”

“Do you think I’m too old to beat Donald Trump?” he asked, as the crowd responded “no”.

Referencing Trump’s criminal conviction in New York, and the other charges he is facing in separate cases, he called his rival a “one-man crime wave”.

Pressure on Mr Biden to step aside has only grown following the debate which was marked by several instances where he lost his train of thought, raising concerns about his age and mental fitness.

Some major Democratic donors have begun to push for Mr Biden to step down as the party’s nominee, publicly warning they will withhold funds unless he is replaced.

His campaign is planning an aggressive come-back. His wife, Jill Biden, as well as Vice-President Kamala Harris, are planning a campaign blitz to travel to every battleground swing state this month.

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Mr Biden, who is due to speak at another rally in Pennsylvania on Sunday, thanked the vice-president for her support. She has emerged as the most likely candidate to replace him on the Democratic ticket if he were to step down.

The Washington Post has reported that Mr Biden’s senior team is aware of the pressure coming from within the Democratic Party to make a decision on the future of his candidacy within the next week.

On Friday, reports emerged that House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries had scheduled a Sunday meeting with senior House Democrats to discuss Mr Biden’s candidacy.

Five Democrats in the House of Representatives in Congress have now called for him to withdraw from the race – Angie Craig of Minnesota, Lloyd Doggett of Texas, Raúl Grijalva of Arizona, Seth Boulton of Massachusetts and Mike Quigley of Illinois.

“I do not believe that the President can effectively campaign and win against Donald Trump,” said Congresswoman Craig in a statement on Saturday.

“This is not a decision I’ve come to lightly, but there is simply too much at stake to risk a second Donald Trump presidency. That’s why I respectfully call on President Biden to step aside as the Democratic nominee for a second term as President and allow for a new generation of leaders to step forward.”

However, no senior Democrats have called on him to quit, as his campaign has pointed out to reporters.

On Friday, reports emerged that Senator Mark Warner was attempting to form a group of fellow Democratic senators to ask Mr Biden to drop out of the race. The reports, including one in the Washington Post, suggested Mr Warner had deep concerns following the CNN debate.

Speaking to reporters later on Friday, Mr Biden said he understood that Mr Warner “is the only one considering that” and that no one else had called for him to step down.

The same day, Massachusetts Governor Maura Healey, a Democrat and ally of Mr Biden, issued a statement urging the president to “carefully evaluate” whether he remains the Democratic nominee.

“Whatever President Biden decides, I am committed to doing everything in my power to defeat Donald Trump,” she said.

Some Democratic voters, too, have lost faith in Mr Biden’s capacity to run. In a Wall Street Journal poll released on Friday, 86% of Democrats said they would support Mr Biden, down from 93% in February.

At the rally in Madison, multiple Biden supporters told BBC News that they supported his bid for re-election and were not concerned about the debate debacle.

“I’m not worried about his health. I think he can go all the way to the election and beyond,” said primary school teacher Susan Shotliff, 56.

Some said that while Mr Biden struggled for words, more focus should be on his Republican rival. “During the debate, [Trump] told a bunch of lies. How is that any worse than what Biden did?” said Greg Hovel, 67.

Others expressed more concern. “I wanted to have a first hand look at how he’s like, his mannerisms, his energy,” said Thomas Leffler, a health researcher from Madison. “I’m worried about his capacity to beat Trump.”

“As he gets older, I think it’s going to increasingly be an issue. But I’ll vote blue no matter what,” he said.

Only the ‘Lord Almighty’ could convince me to quit – Biden

Canada announces permanent residency visa programme for caregivers

Canada’s Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship, Honourable Marc Miller has announced that the country will be launching enhanced pilot programs where free visa sponsorship will be given to caregivers who will be recruited from overseas.

Israeli team led by spy chief Barnea meets Qatari mediators on Gaza deal

JERUSALEM: Israel’s spy chief held talks with Qatari mediators on Friday in the latest effort for a truce and hostage release deal for Gaza, almost nine months into the Israel-Hamas war.

A source with knowledge of the negotiations said Mossad chief David Barnea and his delegation had left Doha straight after the meetings on the latest Hamas ideas for an agreement.

No public statement was issued after the talks.

The US, which has worked alongside Qatar and Egypt in trying to broker a deal, had talked up the significance of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s decision to send a delegation to Qatar.

The US believes Israel and Hamas have a “pretty significant opening” to reach an agreement, a senior official said.

The Gaza war — which has raised fears of a broader conflagration involving Lebanon — began with Hamas’s October 7 attack on southern Israel that resulted in the deaths of 1,195 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli figures.

The militants also seized hostages, 116 of whom remain in Gaza including 42 the military says are dead.

In response, Israel has carried out a military offensive that has killed at least 38,011 people in Gaza, also mostly civilians, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-ruled territory.

US President Joe Biden announced a pathway to a truce deal in May that he said had been proposed by Israel. It included an initial six-week truce, Israeli withdrawal from Gaza population centers and the freeing of hostages by Palestinian militants.

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Talks subsequently stalled but the US official said on Thursday that the new proposal from Hamas “moves the process forward and may provide the basis for closing the deal,” though “significant work” remained.

Senior Hamas official Osama Hamdan told AFP that the group expected a swift Israeli response — “likely today or tomorrow morning” — to its new “ideas.”

He blamed Israel for the deadlock since Biden’s announcement.

Hamdan said the ideas had been “conveyed by the mediators to the American side, which welcomed them and passed them on to the Israeli side. Now the ball is in the Israeli court.”

Hamdan said the Doha talks “will be a test for the US administration to see if it is willing to pressure the Zionist entity to accept these proposed ideas.”

There has been no truce in the war since a one-week pause in November saw 80 Israeli hostages freed in return for 240 Palestinians held in Israeli prisons.

The war has uprooted 90 percent of Gaza’s population, destroyed much of the territory’s housing and other infrastructure, and left almost 500,000 people enduring “catastrophic” hunger, UN agencies say.

The main stumbling block to a truce deal has been Hamas’s demand for a permanent end to the fighting, which Netanyahu and his far-right coalition partners strongly reject.

The Israeli leader has faced a well-organized protest movement demanding a deal to free the hostages, which took to the streets again on Thursday evening.

Netanyahu insists the war will not end until Israel destroys Hamas and the hostages are freed.

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The head of the World Health Organization warned that “further disruption to health services is imminent in Gaza due to a severe lack of fuel.”

Only 90,000 liters (20,000 gallons) of fuel entered Gaza on Wednesday, but the health sector alone needs 80,000 liters each day.

The WHO and its partners in Gaza were having “to make impossible choices” as a result, said Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.

US officials, including Secretary of State Antony Blinken, have voiced hope that a ceasefire in Gaza could lead to an easing of violence on the Israel-Lebanon border as well.

Since the war began, Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah movement has exchanged near-daily cross-border fire with the Israeli army in support of its Palestinian ally.

The exchanges have intensified over the past month after Israel killed senior Hezbollah commanders in targeted air strikes.

Hezbollah said it fired more than 200 rockets and “explosive drones” at army positions in northern Israel and the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights in its latest round of reprisals on Thursday.

A military source said the rocket fire killed a soldier in northern Israel.

Hamas said Friday that its foreign relations chief Khalil Al-Hayya had met Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah to coordinate their “resistance efforts” and the upcoming truce negotiations.

Israeli team led by spy chief Barnea meets Qatari mediators on Gaza deal