President Joe Biden to sit down for NBC News interview with Lester Holt in Austin

President Joe Biden will sit down with NBC News host Lester Holt for an interview in Austin on Monday for a prime-time special set to air at 8 p.m. that night.

The interview, one of historically few media appearances for a sitting president, comes as Biden faces a rising tide of concerns about his mental fitness after a disastrous presidential debate performance on June 27 against former President Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee.

Biden will be in Austin on Monday for an official White House trip to the LBJ Presidential Library and Museum, where he will deliver a speech on civil rights and democracy to commemorate former President Lyndon B. Johnson's signing of the Civil Rights Act 60 years ago. Public event tickets are not available, but the speech will be livestreamed via YouTube beginning at 12:30 p.m.

Both events will take place on the same day that the Republican National Convention kicks off in Milwaukee.

The NBC News appearance may allow Biden to address concerns about his ability to lead for four more years after an ABC News interview in the same one-on-one format Friday failed to substantially change the discourse around his presidential bid. Democratic lawmakers in Congress, with Rep. Lloyd Doggett of Austin being the first, have called on the president to cede his nomination to a younger aspirant.

Biden has given fewer news conferences and media interviews than any other president since at least Ronald Reagan, counting 164 as of the start of July, according to an analysis from presidential scholar Martha Joynt Kumar. Trump participated in 468 such appearances during his term, while Biden's former running mate Barack Obama counted 570 during his time in the Oval Office.

Portions of the interview will first air on Holt's show, NBC Nightly News, at 5:30 p.m. Monday. The unedited interview will air in its entirety in a primetime special at 8 p.m. on NBC and via streaming on NBC News Now at the same time, the network announced Wednesday afternoon.

The full interview and unedited transcript will also be available online at NBCNews.com after the prime-time special airs.

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: NBC's Lester Holt to interview President Joe Biden in Austin