U.S. President Joe Biden delivers remarks on the 75th anniversary of NATO at the Andrew W. Mellon Auditorium in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday, July 9, 2024. (Yuri Gripas/Abaca Press/TNS)
President Joe Biden is forging ahead with a political war on two fronts: against skeptics from his own party and against Republican challenger Donald Trump.
A high-stakes press conference on Thursday evening that began with a major gaffe — his second in as many hours — saw the incumbent 81-year-old Democrat flatly insist he was keeping his campaign alive.
“I’m determined on running,” Biden said, adding he would only step aside if aides told him that he couldn’t win, something “no one is suggesting” now.
His performance failed to stem the tide of Democratic angst. House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries met with Biden Thursday evening and “directly expressed the full breadth of insight, heartfelt perspectives, and conclusions about the path forward” that had been shared with him, according to a letter sent to lawmakers Friday. The White House confirmed the meeting, but declined to provide details about the discussion.
Shortly after Biden’s NATO appearance ended, three more members from his party, including Representative Jim Himes, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, called for him to step aside.
Biden acknowledged Thursday night that “it’s important that I allay fears” within his party.
On Friday, he’ll head to a campaign event in Detroit, taking that effort to the crucial swing-state of Michigan. Next week, he’ll look to shore up his standing with key Democratic blocs with a stop Monday in Austin to mark the 60th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act — an attempt to also counterprogram the Republican National Convention which starts that day. That will be followed by visits to the NAACP National Convention and a gathering of Latino activists.
Focus on Trump
As Biden left the stage Thursday, he also sought to shift the focus to Trump, suggesting to voters that despite his own missteps his general-election challenger’s rhetoric and policies are much worse.
“Listen to him,” Biden said.
That message was amplified Friday morning by one of the president’s closest allies in Congress, Representative Jim Clyburn of South Carolina, who said he remains “all in” with Biden and that the party should let him “make his own decisions about his future.”
Clyburn said attention should be on Trump and what his return to power would augur for American voters, citing Project 2025, a sweeping policy blueprint being crafted by some of the Republican’s closest advisers that proposes a massive overhaul of the federal government and replacing thousands of civil servants with officials deemed loyal to the former president to help enact a more conservative agenda.
“I would hope that we would spend our time now focusing on the record that we will lay out for the American people, remind the American people of what is in store for them if Project 2025 were to become the law in any form. That is where our focus ought to be,” Clyburn said on NBC’s Today.
Trump has repeatedly sought to distance himself from the project, despite the involvement of some of the most prominent members of his former administration in the initiative — a reaction that suggests concern that the Democratic attacks may land with voters.
NATO summit
The NATO summit in Washington this week gave the White House a chance to showcase Biden uniting world leaders in support of Ukraine’s defense against Russia’s invasion. The president survived nearly a week of intense scrutiny as he hosted dozens of world leaders in Washington before making the kind of gaffe Democrats feared as the gathering concluded.
Biden confused Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy with Russian President Vladimir Putin, while on stage with fellow NATO leaders, a misstep that drew gasps from the audience and threatened to unleash a new round of anxiety in foreign capitals worried about the prospect of Trump returning to office.
The president quickly recovered, seeking to clean up the mistake. “President Putin? We’re going to beat President Putin,” Biden said, but the event marred the close of an otherwise successful summit.
Up until the Putin gaffe, Biden had won praise from European leaders and their advisers, who said he appeared energetic and strong.
He delivered a strident speech at the summit’s opening, held various meetings with delegations from allies and led alliance members in pledging new security assistance for Ukraine — including badly-needed air-defense systems. The final communique also called out China’s aid to Russia with strong language, reflecting an ability to broaden hard-nosed US concerns about Chinese behavior to European allies that are not always willing to risk Beijing’s ire.
Ahead of his solo appearance, several European aides suggested the level of scrutiny on Biden was unfair, and that younger leaders might have withered under a similar microscope. Following the Thursday evening slip-ups, however, one senior European official said it was unfortunate that the gaffes would likely overshadow the progress made at the gathering.
Later that evening at the start of his press conference, Biden also mistakenly referred to Vice President Kamala Harris as “Vice President Trump,” this time failing to correct himself.
Before the press conference was over, Trump had already mocked Biden’s reference on social media, writing “GREAT job, Joe!”
Still, the president handled most of the questions at the event well, speaking at length on various issues, including a detailed foreign policy question about China and Russia. White House aides were quick to highlight Biden’s ability to handle detailed policy questions.
“To answer the question on everyone’s minds: No, Joe Biden does not have a doctorate in foreign affairs,” one White House deputy spokesman, Andrew Bates, wrote on X.
But the White House and campaign’s efforts to have Biden speak more and increase his visibility offer more public tests for a president who has long shown a propensity for verbal stumbles. Biden will sit for an interview with NBC’s Lester Holt on Monday, to be aired in prime time, the second such sitdown with a broadcast network in as many weeks.
On Thursday night, after his press conference Biden responded to Trump on X.
“By the way: Yes, I know the difference” between Harris and Trump, he wrote. “One’s a prosecutor, and the other’s a felon.”
With assistance from Alex Wickham and Billy House.
©2024 Bloomberg L.P.
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