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By the time Joe Biden took the stage on Thursday evening, almost an hour late, for his first solo news conference in eight months, it was hard to imagine what the President could say that would satisfy nervous Democrats who are wondering whether he needs to pull the plug on his reëlection campaign: I’m sorry? I’m going to do better? I quit? He didn’t say any of those things, of course. Though maybe he should have.
There was a bad whiff about the event well before it began. In the hours leading up to the press conference, more dire news stalked Biden—a Pew Research poll found that seventy-one per cent of Biden’s own voters wanted both him and former President Donald Trump to drop out; a steady drip of Democratic lawmakers was practically begging him to “do the right thing” and step aside; quotes to the press from anonymous Biden aides declared his candidacy all but dead as his approval rating sank to a new low of just under thirty-seven per cent in the FiveThirtyEight average. “He needs to drop out,” one Biden campaign staffer told NBC News. “He will never recover from this.”
The enduring questions about Biden’s advanced age and continued fitness for office certainly weren’t helped by his pre-game gaffe at the final session of nato’s seventy-fifth-anniversary summit that he’s been hosting in Washington this week. “Ladies and gentlemen, President Putin,” he said, while introducing Ukraine’s President, Volodymyr Zelensky. He quickly caught himself and turned back to the podium to correct his mistake: “President Putin? He’s gonna beat President Putin.” But, coming less than an hour before the press conference, it wasn’t a good omen. And sure enough, Biden was barely into his first response before he let loose another gaffe, arguably even cringier than the first. Asked about Vice-President Kamala Harris and her ability to step in for him if need be, Biden responded by saying, “Look, I wouldn’t have picked Vice-President Trump to be Vice-President if I think she was not qualified to be President.” This time, he did not even spot the error.
Possibly, maybe even probably, that is all that anyone will remember about this press conference. One thing we can already say with certainty is that Biden’s performance—shaky but by no means disgracef
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