U.S. President Joe Biden walks out to hold a news conference at the 2024 NATO Summit on Thursday, July 11, 2024, in Washington, D.C. (Kent Nishimura/Getty Images/TNS)
WASHINGTON (Tribune News Service) — President Joe Biden vowed he would remain in the 2024 presidential race, but two critical mistakes in the span of two hours deepened concerns about his mental acuity that threaten his campaign.
Biden, 81, saw the culmination of this week’s NATO summit as a chance to reassure allies who for two weeks had fretted about his abilities following his first debate performance against Donald Trump. Over a bilateral meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and a nearly hourlong news conference, he spoke confidently on a range of complex issues from the tax code and trade policy to Russia and the Israel-Hamas war.
But with virtually no margin for error, Biden mistook two of his biggest allies for his greatest enemies.
The president drew gasps — and instant mockery online — when he mistakenly introduced Zelenskyy as Russian President Vladimir Putin at an event in the late afternoon. Then, at the opening of the press conference, he fumbled a question about Vice President Kamala Harris by saying he “wouldn’t have picked Vice President Trump to be vice president” if he did not have confidence in her.
The solo news conference, Biden’s first this year, was designed to show that he has the stamina and adeptness to make a case to voters they should elect him over Trump in November. His dedicated allies said they were buoyed as he took questions from 11 reporters, and displayed more humility than he has in recent days about the difficult political road ahead.
“I’m determined on running, but I think it’s important that I allay fears,” Biden said.
But with viewers hanging on his every word, early signs indicated Biden’s performance was not enough to ease the intraparty turmoil that was set off after his debate against Trump.
Almost immediately after the news conference ended, at least three more House Democrats, including Rep. Jim Himes, the top member from his party on the Intelligence Committee, joined the growing list of lawmakers calling on Biden to step aside.
One member of a NATO delegation said after the news conference that their nation’s leader did not think Biden could survive the crisis consuming his presidency, even though the summit in Washington was generally praised by participants for its substance.
At the same time, Trump met with Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban — whose recent meeting with Putin in Moscow drew the ire of many NATO leaders — according to an Instagram post on the European leader’s verified account.
Biden’s performance was at times shaky and included some of the hallmarks of the tightly controlled exchanges preferred by the White House, like calling on a list of preselected reporters. But he avoided repeating some of the worst mistakes from last month’s debate.
In some ways, it was a news conference that had something for everyone.
Aides on Biden’s campaign said they believed the performance would make the case to lawmakers who had expressed alarm over the president’s path to victory.
For Trump and his allies, who want Biden to stay in the race, there was enough material to mock — but not a devastating moment that would have knocked the president from the contest. A replacement candidate could blunt some of the inroads Trump has made with young and minority voters disillusioned by Biden’s age.
Trump gleefully seized on Biden mistaking Harris for his predecessor, posting on his social media site that Biden had done a “great job.”
When asked at the end of the news conference for his response to Trump noting his flub, Biden suggested that his rival had said far worse things.
“Listen to him,” he said.
Biden rejected the calls for him to step aside raised by multiple reporters, saying he is “the best qualified person to do the job.” He said he had not handed over the role of party standard-bearer to another Democrat “because there’s so much at stake.”
“I’ve got to finish this job,” he said.
But for one of the first times of his presidency, he conceded that “there are other people that could beat Trump too.” While he said he remained committed to running, he did allow that he might reconsider if “they came back and said there’s no way you can win.”
Biden subsequently downplayed his verbal miscues, pointing to world leaders who had praised the NATO conference as successful.
Still, even Biden acknowledged he may never be able to fully reassure Americans about his competence when asked if he would take a fresh neurological exam.
“No matter what I did, no one’s going to be satisfied,” the president said.
His misstatements followed reporting earlier Thursday by The New York Times that several longtime advisers to the president were discussing ways to persuade Biden to exit the race — and that his campaign is polling how Harris would fare against Trump if she were to take over the top of the ticket.
Spokespeople for Biden insisted his team remained behind him, but the signal that the president’s own confidants may be joining the chorus of outside lawmakers, donors, and strategists calling on him to exit the race amounted to a potentially terminal blow after a bruising week.
“I’m not in this for my legacy. I’m in this to complete the job I started,” Biden said.
The president said his schedule had been “full bore” and that he needed to pace himself, while noting his staff added lots of events to his calendar. But he said he compared favorably to Trump.
“Instead of my — every day starting at seven and going to bed at midnight, what I said was, it’d be smarter for me to pace myself a little more,” Biden said.
“Where’s Trump been? Riding around on his golf cart? Filling out his scorecard before he hits the ball?” he added.
Top White House and campaign officials were dispatched to Capitol Hill on Thursday in a bid to shore up wary lawmakers. Many trickled out of a luncheon for Democratic senators declining to answer questions about the president posed by reporters.
The huddle came a day after two of Biden’s closest congressional allies — Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi – appeared to be nudging Biden toward the door.
Pelosi told MSNBC that Biden needed to decide “if he is going to run.” Axios reported that Schumer privately signaled to donors he was open to letting Biden step aside, though the New York senator subsequently said he backs the president.
Hadriana Lowenkron, Jennifer Jacobs, Jenny Leonard and Natalia Drozdiak contributed to this report.
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