In one of the most shocking moments, Biden mistakenly referred to Harris as “Vice President Trump,” hours after Biden, at a separate event during the NATO summit in Washington, referred to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky as Russian President Vladimir Putin, then quickly corrected himself.
Suggesting that the press conference would not stop calls for Trump to end his candidacy, three Democratic senators — Reps. Jim Himes (R-Conn.), Scott Peters (R-Calif.) and Eric Sorensen (R-Ill.) — issued a statement calling on Trump to resign shortly after the press conference ended. This followed four senators calling on Trump to resign on Thursday, before the press conference began.
The press conference was ostensibly planned to mark the end of the 75th NATO summit in Washington, but questions quickly focused on Biden’s advanced age and his precarious political position after he struggled to gather his thoughts and stalled on a range of issues during the June 27 presidential debate.
Standing at the center of a large stage with a blue NATO flag and eight American flags behind him, Biden answered reporters’ questions for nearly an hour, trying to show his quick thinking and eloquence. Biden was bombarded with questions about a range of issues, from his own physical strength to world conflicts. Biden’s longest response was on foreign affairs, where he gave detailed answers about the US’s relations with Europe, China and the Middle East.
Biden faced a host of tough questions about his health, stamina and intelligence, answering them sometimes dismissively, sometimes self-deprecatingly, arguing that his performance as president was the greatest testament to his vitality while also suggesting that he would need to scale back on his activities in the future.
Biden elaborated on his post-debate remarks about the need to end the day earlier. “What I said is, instead of starting every day at 7 o’clock and going to bed at midnight, it would be wise to slow down a little bit,” Biden said. “Instead of starting your fundraiser at 9, start at 8 so people can be home by 10. That’s what I’m saying.”
He compared his recent pace to that of Trump, criticizing the former president for his limited public appearances. “If you look at my schedule since I made that stupid mistake at the debate, my schedule is full,” he said. “Where’s Mr. Trump? Riding around in his golf cart, filling out his scorecard before he hits a ball? Look, he’s done virtually nothing.”
Some Democrats, including some who privately want the president out of office, said they thought Biden handled the news conference relatively well. Biden aides noted the positive reactions from some lawmakers and argued the president had cleared a hurdle in one of the most consequential events of his political career.
Whether that’s enough to stem the tide of defections will become clear on Friday.
By the time the press conference began, 16 Democratic members of the House and one Democratic senator had called on Biden to withdraw from the presidential race. Other Democrats had also publicly expressed concern, with several House Democrats preparing to issue a statement at the press conference calling on Biden to step down if he doesn’t perform well, according to four people familiar with the planning and speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the private deliberations.
This week, Sen. Peter Welch of Vermont became the first Democratic senator to call for Biden to step down, Sen. Michael Bennet of Colorado said he expects Trump to win in a landslide victory, and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California called on Biden to decide quickly whether to continue in the race even as the president remains adamant he remains the leading Democratic candidate.
Concerns about the 81-year-old president’s age have dominated public opinion as Democrats seek to focus on the threat Trump poses to the nation’s democracy. A Washington Post/ABC News/Ipsos poll released Thursday found that 85% of Americans say Biden is too old to serve another four years as president, while 60% say Trump, 78, is too old to serve a second term.
Polls taken after the debate suggested the race between Trump and Biden was close and little changed from April, but other polls have shown bigger shifts, with a Washington Post polling average suggesting Biden’s approval rating has fallen by 1 to 2 percentage points nationally over the past two weeks.
Biden, meanwhile, has repeatedly said he has no plans to drop out of the race and maintains he is well positioned to defeat Trump in November.
Biden campaign officials downplayed any changes in the polls after the debate, saying on Thursday they were focusing on the “blue wall” states of Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.
In a memo sent to campaign staff ahead of the press conference, Biden campaign chair Jen O’Malley Dillon and campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez said Biden still had leads in these states and urged Democrats to support him rather than wallow in self-destructive grief over the next few days.
It’s unclear how much the debate has swayed Democratic Party officials. Ahead of Thursday’s press conference, Reps. Bradley Schneider (D-Ill.) and Hillary J. Scholten (D-Mich.) issued separate statements urging Biden to “pass the baton,” joining a growing list of Democrats who want a new candidate to challenge Trump. Reps. Ed Case (D-Hawaii) and Greg Stanton (D-Arizona) also called on Biden to step aside before Thursday’s press conference.
The furore has focused more attention on Ms. Harris, who some Democrats see as a stronger challenger to Mr. Trump. As party officials consider her possible run as the presidential nominee if Mr. Biden drops out, Ms. Harris has vigorously defended Mr. Biden since the debate and was full of praise for him at the news conference.
““I wouldn’t have chosen her if I didn’t think she was qualified to be president from the beginning,” he said. “I made no attempt to hide that. She is qualified to be president, and that’s why I chose her.”
Biden has struggled with solo press conferences in the past and holds them far less frequently than his predecessors.
Thursday’s press conference was Trump’s 37th since taking office, the fewest of any president in that time period since Ronald Reagan, according to data compiled by Martha Joynt Kumar, professor emeritus of political science at Towson University and director of the White House Transition Project. By comparison, Trump held 99 press conferences and former President Barack Obama held 87.
Thursday’s event was particularly significant for Biden’s political prospects because Biden and his advisers have repeatedly downplayed his debate performance as simply a “bad night” rather than indicative of a general decline in cognitive ability.
On Wednesday, Hollywood actor George Clooney, the top fundraiser for Biden’s reelection campaign, publicly refuted the allegations. Clooney, who hosted Biden at a fundraiser last month, suggested in a New York Times op-ed that the president is losing a race against time.
“I’m shocked to say this, but the Joe Biden I sat with at a fundraiser three weeks ago was not the ‘big’ Joe Biden of 2010,” Clooney wrote. “He wasn’t even the Joe Biden of 2020. He was the same person we all witnessed at the debates,” a reference to Biden’s enthusiastic and vulgar support for the Affordable Care Act signed by President Obama.
But Biden has received support from foreign leaders including British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, whom he met at the NATO summit this week, attesting to the president’s intellectual competence.
Starmer told the BBC on Thursday that Biden was “doing very well” and said “no” when asked if the president had dementia. Scholz gave a similar response to PBS News on Thursday when asked if he had concerns about Biden’s health and whether he would be able to complete another four years in office.
But the summit also had moments that unsettled some foreign leaders, including when Biden began calling Zelensky “President Putin.” Biden quickly corrected himself, saying, “He’s going to defeat President Putin. President Zelensky. I have to worry about that, because I’m focused on defeating Putin.”
Officials in the room froze as they realized the gravity of the mistake, three people who were there said.
Some NATO leaders, all of whom are politicians, are skeptical that Biden can turn things around and many are beginning to prepare for a Trump presidency, said a summit official, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive issues.
Biden praised his handling of the NATO summit at a news conference, concluding a three-day meeting in which he announced new aid for Ukraine, praised member states for increasing defense spending and forcefully defended NATO, an organization that Trump has frequently criticized.
“I thought this was the most successful meeting I’ve been to in a long time,” Biden said. “I don’t think there’s any world leader who didn’t think so.”
Next week is set to be a very eventful one for the presidential election, with Trump expected to announce his running mate within the next few days and the Republican Party holding its nominating convention next week.
Biden will visit Detroit on Friday for a political rally and is scheduled to visit Texas and Nevada next week.
On Monday, he is scheduled to appear in an interview with NBC’s Lester Holt that will air as the Republican National Convention gets underway in Milwaukee.
Liz Goodwin and Marianna Sotomayor contributed to this report.
