The president started with a flub but ended strong. It may not matter.
President Joe Biden speaks at a news conference during the NATO Summit in Washington, DC, on July 11, 2024.
(Graeme Sloan / Bloomberg via Getty Images)
The press conference started badly and nearly two hours after it was initially scheduled. Earlier in the day, he’d called Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky “President Putin,” and tried to turn it into a joke. “No, we’re going to beat Putin!”
At first, Biden mangled words, coughed, spoke softly, and, when asked about whether Vice President Kamala Harris was qualified to be president, insisted, “I wouldn’t have picked Vice President Trump to be vice president if she wasn’t qualified.” (He did affirm Harris’s qualifications to be president, but said he was more qualified. Understandably.)
But Biden eased into the format and got stronger the more he talked policy. His advocacy of his economic policies, especially his defense of unions and rebuilding manufacturing, was strong. “I was determined to stop trickle-down economic theory,” he said.
Biden was at his best talking about the recently closed NATO summit and his foreign policy. His success in assembling the coalition behind Ukraine President Zelensky is genuine. One of his best arguments was that he’d added Finland and Sweden to NATO, and prevented “the Finlandization of Ukraine versus NATO-ization of Ukraine.” You can disagree with his Ukraine policy, but he executed it well and defended it strongly. His voice got stronger as he went on. He spoke more slowly, but also more authoritatively. He boasted of his relationship with Chinese President Xi Jinping.
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Biden also returned to praise Harris and got her name right this time, but showed his discomfort with abortion politics. He demanded “the freedom of women’s bodies to have control over their bodies.” Later he shouted, “Control guns, not girls!” And while I definitely agree with that, it was a little weird. He’s not on solid ground on these issues, while his vice president is one of the best advocates we have.
He periodically got feisty, in a good way, asking the reporters: “Do you think democracy is under siege, based on this [Supreme Court]…Project 2025? We’ve never been here before. And that’s why I didn’t hand off to another generation. We’ve got to finish this job.”
And he got off a funny line: “I mean, my schedule has been full. Where has Trump been? Riding around in his golf cart, filling out his scorecard before he hits the ball. Look, he’s done virtually nothing.”
It’s not clear that Biden’s decent performance will stop Democratic leaders’ calls for him to drop his campaign. Democratic Representative Jim Himes made a statement calling on him to step aside the minute the press conference ended.
I have questions about the wisdom of his staff setting up events like this press conference in the first place. Remember, it was the Biden campaign that demanded the June debate with Trump, believing it would remind voters of his acuity and Trump’s derangement. That backfired. As did the scheduling of the interview with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos last week. These events summon millions of keyboard warriors (like myself) to examine his every throat-clearing and verbal flub.
On Thursday came disturbing news that alleged campaign “officials” or “insiders” are telling reporters anonymously, first at NBC News and The New York Times, that they believe Biden has no path to victory. “He needs to drop out,” one Biden campaign official told NBC News. “He will never recover from this.” Unnamed advisers told the Times they were trying to figure out how to convince him to leave the race. What is going on? Earlier this week, the campaign dubbed his Thursday night NATO confab his “big boy press conference.” Are they trying to infantilize him? Would that maybe offset concerns about his age and his various senior moments?
Biden had a comparatively good night. But he hasn’t stopped the political bleeding.
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Joan Walsh
Joan Walsh, a national affairs correspondent for The Nation, is a coproducer of The Sit-In: Harry Belafonte Hosts The Tonight Show and the author of What’s the Matter With White People? Finding Our Way in the Next America. Her new book (with Nick Hanauer and Donald Cohen) is Corporate Bullsh*t: Exposing the Lies and Half-Truths That Protect Profit, Power and Wealth In America.
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