President Biden on Tuesday claimed foreign travel left him so tuckered out that he nearly “fell asleep” during his disastrous debate performance last week — even though he had 13 days to recover from his most recent trip abroad, including a full week at Camp David with afternoon naps.

The 81-year-old commander in chief provided the new excuse as he faces mounting calls from fellow Democrats to step aside and allow a new presidential nominee ahead of the Nov. 5 election.

“I wasn’t very smart. I decided to travel around the world a couple of times… in a couple of weeks before the debate,” Biden told Democratic donors in McLean, Va.  “And didn’t listen to my staff and came back and nearly fell asleep on stage.”

Biden blamed foreign travel despite making just two brief recent foreign trips — traveling on June 5-9 to France to mark the 80th anniversary of D-Day and on June 12-14 to the annual G7 summit in Italy — ahead of the June 27 CNN debate against former President Donald Trump.

The president spent the first full day of his French trip at his hotel without public events.

Biden was at his Rehoboth Beach getaway June 18-20 before traveling to Camp David in western Maryland, where he remained out of public view for the week before the debate.

Debate prep sessions “never started before 11 a.m. and Mr. Biden was given time for an afternoon nap each day,” the New York Times reported Tuesday.

Biden’s catastrophic debate performance — which included a soft, raspy voice and unintelligible phrases such as “we finally beat Medicare” — was initially suggested by aides to be attributable at least in part to a cold.

What to know about the calls for President Biden to drop out of the 2024 race:

• President Biden’s poor performance in the first 2024 presidential debate left some Democrats unsure of his fitness for office and future as the party’s candidate.
• More than a dozen congressional Democrats have joined in calling for Biden’s exit from the race. Former Biden supporter George Clooney echoed these calls in an op-ed published in the New York Times just weeks after he helped lead a record-breaking fundraiser for the Democrat.
• Democratic voters have continued to raise concerns about Biden’s nomination since the debate, with speculations and suggestions for replacement nominees running rampant.
• Biden’s former running mate Barack Obama has reportedly been trying to pressure him to drop out, and had prior knowledge of Clooney’s op-ed. Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi allegedly told Biden he could not beat former President Donald Trump this time around.
• As the Democratic National Convention approaches, California delegates for the Democratic Party are reportedly in disarray as debate over the president’s chances of re-election threatens to tear the party apart.
• However, the Biden campaign has denied any plans for Biden to bow out and for Kamala Harris to step in as the Democratic nominee. Sources close to the president believe he might not be willing to drop out, while other sources claim he is “receptive” to giving up on a second term.

Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-Texas) on Tuesday became the first sitting member of Congress from Biden’s party to call for him to step aside — writing that Biden should follow the example of President Lyndon B. Johnson, who chose not to seek re-election in 1968.

Another Democrat, Rep. Jared Golden of Maine, wrote in an op-ed for the Bangor Daily News Tuesday that he also had no confidence in Biden.

“Biden’s poor performance in the debate was not a surprise,” Golden wrote. “It also didn’t rattle me as it has others, because the outcome of this election has been clear to me for months: While I don’t plan to vote for him, Donald Trump is going to win. And I’m OK with that.”

Post-debate internal Democratic polling published Tuesday by Puck News shows that Trump, 78, now leads in states that overwhelmingly supported Biden in 2020, including New Hampshire, New Mexico and Virginia.

A CBS News poll released Monday found that 45% of Democrats want Biden to step aside — a position also advocated Friday by the New York Times editorial board.