The US president has insisted that he has no intention of giving up the campaign, but that may not have allayed Democratic fears.
Joe Biden took the stage Thursday night (7/11) to hold a press conference with much hanging in the balance: his presidency, his hope for re-election, and his political life.
All this is at stake, but he just admitted it in the hour-long press conference marking the end of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) summit.
It was his first impromptu appearance since a disastrous debate with his November election opponent, Donald Trump, which led several Democratic politicians and donors to call on him to drop out of the presidential race.
Although he downplayed concerns about his campaign in a much-anticipated press conference, after repeated questions from reporters, two heartbreaking gaffes, which did nothing to help his situation, will be remembered by those who watched.
In his first response, Biden called his running mate, Kamala Harris, “Vice President Trump” — a painful stumble on national television.
This came just an hour after another headline-grabbing blunder at a NATO summit, when Biden introduced Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky as “President Putin,” prompting loud gasps from the audience.
He quickly corrected the first verbal error involving the Ukrainian leader. He did not notice the second, even when some journalists in the room murmured in surprise, and several of his top cabinet secretaries, sitting in the front row, remained impassive.
These moments — the only major stumbles in what has so far been a stable, if not vigorous, facade — will surely leave apprehensive Democrats wondering whether there will be more gaffes to come if the president continues his campaign.
Biden, 81, has faced persistent questions about his age and ability to serve another term, questions that intensified after the debate.
But, during the interview, he assured that he is not fighting for his legacy, but to complete the work he started when he took office in 2021.
“If I slow down and can’t get the work done, that’s a sign I shouldn’t be doing it,” he said.
“But there is no indication of that yet.”
Depending on your perspective, this attitude can be seen as a sign of dogged determination or as a man in a state of denial about how dire his situation has become.
Minutes after the interview ended, several other Democratic members of Congress publicly called on Biden to withdraw from the race, joining at least a dozen other Democratic lawmakers who had already done so.
The question for the Biden campaign is whether the floodgates will open now or whether the tide will hold.
For now at least, Biden seemed like a happy fighter, insisting he would keep going. He laughed and smiled as he was bombarded with questions, and said he might follow Russia’s Vladimir Putin and China’s Xi Jinping, though the hoarseness and cough that appeared during the debate two weeks ago still seemed to linger.
He insisted once again that he did not need cognitive testing, telling reporters that even if he saw “two or seven doctors,” his critics would not be satisfied.
The election campaign, he added, had just begun and he reiterated once again that he was confident he could defeat Trump in the November elections.
Democratic delegates who will officially endorse him as the party’s nominee at next month’s convention are free to change their minds, he said, before whispering, “That’s not going to happen.”
Biden has said he would consider dropping out of the race if his team provided him with data showing he couldn’t win, but polls still suggest the race is tied.
In this respect, he is well supported. An Ipsos poll released Thursday, for example, showed Biden trailing his opponent by just one point — within the margin of error. If one thing has been clear since the start of the year, it is that support for both candidates has remained remarkably steady, despite the unprecedented drama surrounding them.
But polls alone won’t quell the panic that has spread among many Democratic officials, and the storm clouds hanging over Biden’s campaign won’t dissipate so easily.
There are other Democratic politicians waiting in the wings, reportedly ready to announce their break with the president, after waiting until the conclusion of the NATO summit to voice their concerns.
And this is just the first round of tests for the president in the hot seat. He will have another important interview on Monday (15/7) with the host Lester Holt, of the American network NBC. Donors are worried and, last Thursday, several reports suggested that even members of the presidential campaign itself were planning paths to push their candidate out of the race.
Despite all this, Biden has made it clear that it will be a tall order to withdraw his nomination. The 81-year-old who has at times held the pulpit with both hands and insisted that he is the “best qualified person” to run the country will not be quietly leaving the scene.
Source: Terra
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