When it comes to his phone call-in to MSNBC’s Morning Joe TV show on Monday morning, President Joe Biden can be grateful for one thing only — namely, that his interview wasn’t aired in the prime-time evening hours and thus that many people won’t hear what he had to say.

Because what Biden did say once again underlined why he should be ending his reelection campaign.

There are few more pro-Biden news shows than Morning Joe. Hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski have long been ardent defenders of the president. In June, Scarborough and his colleagues slammed the Wall Street Journal for its now-provably accurate reporting on Biden’s mental decline. On Monday, however, they and the president had the opportunity to limit some of the damage from Biden’s recent debate disaster with former President Donald Trump. Instead, Biden only reinforced the reality of his mental frailty.

The most obvious indication of this frailty was that Biden chose to conduct this interview via phone call rather than in person. While Trump has made many such phone-in interviews, Biden has an obvious political interest in visually showing Democratic-leaning voters and donors that he’s competent to be reelected. He needs to get out on camera and show he can be tested with a range of questions.

That aside, while Biden offered occasional points of clarity on Monday, these were enmeshed in repeated moments of unpredictable anger and rambling confusion. It was also painfully evident that Biden was reading from a large number of note cards. At times, Biden became confused as he audibly shuffled between these cards. Nor was there contrition or recognition for why the polls show Biden in free fall since the debate.

Biden claimed that when it comes to his mental acuity, he had “released all my [medical] records, all of them — all of them!” Of course, this leaves out Biden’s refusal to be tested for age-related illnesses and then release the results of any tests. When Brzezinski pushed Biden here, the president said he had been tested for … COVID-19. Biden then shouted, “It drives me nuts! People talking about this!” At another point, Biden added, “I am not going to explain any more about what I should or shouldn’t do; I am running.”

There’s a problematic arrogance tied to this derision for legitimate concern. It plays to the idea, already well founded, that Biden and his family care far more about their own personal ambitions than those of the country. Or, put another way, that Biden is far more similar in character to Trump than he would have us believe.

Still, Biden’s frustration was not limited to the obvious public concern that the commander in chief be in command of his faculties. Democrats concerned by Biden’s mental state received their own admonition. “I’m getting so frustrated by the leaks … the leaks in the party!” Biden shouted. Does the president seriously believe that this will restrain future leaks? Considering that erratic anger is a well-known sign of senility, the opposite is likely true.

Biden also became confused at points. The president claimed “I was with him” in relation to Trump’s supposed 2018 comment during a visit to France that Americans killed in World War I were “suckers and losers.” Biden was not in France at the time. But the problem here is that this is precisely the kind of issue where a Democratic presidential candidate could draw a positive contrast between themself and Trump. Biden, however, too often struggles either to get a lucid sentence out or invents/misremembers history.

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Biden now faces a major test with a press conference at the White House on Thursday. The president will be on camera during that test. But if he can’t even get through a friendly phone interview while armed with notes, it’s hard to see how he’ll be able to temper the public’s legitimate concern that he is too old and frail to do his rather important job.

It’s no surprise that Trump remains unusually quiet at the moment.