“Joe Biden raised $4.6 million online on his first day in the 2020 presidential race, surprising doubters who thought the former vice president couldn’t run a modern campaign. But since then Biden’s online fundraising has tumbled — looking more like flash-in-the-pan opponent Beto O’Rourke than top-tier rivals like Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren” Politico reports.

“More than 60% of the $13.2 million Biden has raised online came in the first week of his campaign.”

“While other top candidates spiked early and then gradually raised more money online as the 2020 campaign has carried on, Biden’s pattern is similar to O’Rourke, who roared into the race with millions raised in his first day but has trickled off since then.”

New York Times: “He has communicated his frustration that Mr. Biden’s closest advisers are too old and out of touch with the current political climate — urging him to include more younger aides.”

“In March, Mr. Obama took the unusual step of summoning Mr. Biden’s top campaign advisers, including the former White House communications director Anita Dunn and Mr. Biden’s longtime spokeswoman, Kate Bedingfield, to his Washington office for a briefing on the campaign’s digital and communications strategy with members of his own staff, including his senior adviser, Eric Schultz.”

“When they were done, Mr. Obama offered a pointed reminder: Win or lose, they needed to make sure Mr. Biden did not ’embarrass himself’ or ‘damage his legacy’ during the campaign.”

Axios: “To try to make up for Biden’s shortcomings last time, some of his prep sessions (though not exclusively) have been with smaller groups of advisers, with aides asking him what he thinks instead of over-prepping and jamming his head.”

“Joe Biden spent much of his career carving out an image as a tough-on-crime Democrat. But few who watch the second presidential debate are likely to get that impression from him,” Politico reports.

“The rapid evolution of the politics of racial justice have made what used to be a signature strength into a potential liability, forcing him to scuttle his positions and rhetoric from decades ago — or risk getting trampled by rivals questioning his civil rights record. The biggest test comes Wednesday night, when he’ll be flanked on stage by two of his sharpest critics on race, Sens. Kamala Harris and Cory Booker.”

President Trump predicted that Joe Biden would win the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination, The Hill reports.

Said Trump: “I think right now, it will be ‘Sleepy Joe.’ I feel he’ll limp across the line.”

He added: “So, what I think doesn’t mean anything, but I know the other people, I know him. I think he’s off his game by a lot, but personally, I think it’s going to be ‘Sleepy Joe.'”

Politico: “Not long after his anemic performance in the first presidential debate, as his poll numbers began to slide, Joe Biden had conversations with nervous donors and personally assured them his campaign was on track.”

Said one insider: “People were raising serious questions about his ability to be very aggressive against Trump. He’s listening. He seems to be more sure of himself after that first fiasco. I think he realizes now that he screwed up.”

“Many Democrats — including his own donors and admirers — continue to question whether he’s capable of recovering from a damaging first performance. They wonder whether he can exercise the discipline necessary to execute a debate plan on Wednesday, when several rivals will have an interest in taking him down. Seldom has a candidate so well-equipped for a debate projected so much uncertainty.”

“The day after Joe Biden tanked in the first round of Democratic presidential debates, his campaign hired a prominent speech coach for the 36-year senator and 8-year vice president,” the Washington Examiner reports.

“If President Trump makes of fun of his age or questions his mental state during a debate, Joe Biden has a response at the ready: He’ll challenge him to do push-ups on stage,” the Washington Post reports.

Said Biden: “I’d say, ‘C’mon Donald, c’mon man. How many push-ups do you want to do here, pal?’ I mean, jokingly. . . . C’mon, run with me, man.”

New York Times: “The settings on Mr. Biden’s trip were idyllic: a speech on the banks of a river in Dover, a news conference outside of a Portsmouth ice cream shop, a house party in a lush backyard here in Atkinson. But the words suggested that the former vice president is entering a new and more confrontational phase of his 2020 campaign.”

“Mr. Biden’s fresh efforts to highlight distinctions with his rivals — over issues that ranged this weekend from health care and foreign policy, to electability and executive orders — come as he seeks to move on from weeks of scrutiny of his decades-long record, and to offer a more substantive and forward-looking vision beyond his early focus on defeating the president.”

Jonathan Swan: “On Tuesday, Joe Biden told his advisers he wanted to give a speech in South Carolina to address, and preempt, the mounting attacks on his record concerning race and civil rights. Sources close to Biden told me he was still rewriting the draft on Saturday in the car en route to Sumter, South Carolina, where he gave the speech to a mostly black audience.”

“Advisers say Biden was ready for Sen. Bernie Sanders to attack him on the debate stage for being insufficiently progressive, as his camp hinted it would come. Biden anticipated that busing might come up in the debate, aides said, but they said he did not expect Harris to misleadingly imply that he opposed the local voluntary busing that took her to school as a child.”

“I’m still way ahead.”

— Joe Biden, quoted by the New York Times, insisting he was satisfied with his performance in the first Democratic presidential debate.

“Joe Biden compared President Trump to the kind of bully that he would ‘smack’ in the mouth as a child during an interview broadcast Friday in which the former vice president sought to dispel concerns about his shaky first Democratic debate performance,” the Washington Post reports.

Said Biden: “You walk behind me in the debate. Come here, man. The idea that I’d be intimidated by Donald Trump. He’s the bully that I knew my whole life. He’s the bully that I’ve always stood up to. He’s the bully that used to make fun when I was a kid that I stutter, and I’d smack them in the mouth.”

Joe Biden has raised $21.5 million since entering the presidential race in late April, the New York Times reports.

“Pete Buttigieg raised $24.8 million in the quarter and Sen. Bernie Sanders collected $18 million, their campaigns said this week. Unlike Mr. Biden, both Mr. Sanders and Mr. Buttigieg were candidates for the entire quarter; Mr. Biden entered the race on April 25.”

Joe Biden “lost one of his top fundraisers after controversial comments regarding his work with past segregationists and his flip-flop on repealing the Hyde Amendment,” CNBC reports.

“Tom McInerney, a veteran San Francisco based lawyer, informed Biden’s team on June 20 that he can no longer help him raise campaign cash to compete in the 2020 presidential election.”

Said McInerney: “I had actually let the campaign known I’d pulled back my support of Biden for now. I don’t think he did well last night.”

Walter Shapiro: “There is nothing that political pundits and armchair pollsters at home love as much as a flash of emotional drama in the midst of a presidential debate. And that is why everyone in the world watching American TV—whether they are in Ulan Bator, Ukraine, or Utah—will see an endless reel of Harris confronting Biden.”

“The danger, though, lies in over-hyping the lasting significance of this (cliché alert) viral moment more than seven months before the Iowa caucuses. While a strong performance throughout the evening will undoubtedly boost Harris’s fundraising and maybe her poll ratings, Biden still left the stage in his accustomed place as the candidate of Obama era continuity.”

Politico: ““In Miami, three of Biden’s top aides — Anita Dunn, Kate Bedingfield and Symone Sanders — spent 30 minutes batting away questions from skeptical reporters after the debate. They insisted that Biden performed well and made his case to the American people, and acknowledged no mistakes.”