The pivotal event comes as Biden tries to salvage his candidacy and convince Democrats that his faltering performance in last month’s debate was just a “bad night” and not a sign of a broader decline in his cognitive abilities. The outsized importance of the press conference also underscores how Biden’s attempts over the past two weeks to downplay his debate failures and advance his presidential campaign have so far failed to convince many in his party.
Even though the president has loudly stated that he will stay in the race and has bolstered his support this week by winning key votes, the number of leading Democrats who have remained silent or expressed only lukewarm support indicates that a weak showing at the news conference could trigger a new wave of defections. Concerned Democrats worry that Biden’s weak showing in the polls and his stagnant public appearances could pave the way for Donald Trump to return to the White House, a prospect that some have described as an existential threat to the country’s democracy.
Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) said Wednesday he remains “deeply concerned” about Biden’s prospects against Trump, joining the chorus of Democrats who have argued that Biden must do more in the coming days to reassure voters and lawmakers.
“I think he needs to continue to make his case effectively and aggressively to the American people and win their support, as well as the support of a number of my colleagues,” he said.
Biden advisers have suggested that the president’s activity over the past two weeks — which has included numerous rallies, a handful of interviews, a few well-received speeches, impromptu conversations with supporters and a hosting role at the NATO summit in Washington — has helped him stem calls to drop out of the race. Campaign officials pointed to the president’s defiant letter Monday saying he would stay in the race and highlighted statements of support he has received from some Democratic officials in recent days.
Still, many party leaders remain skeptical, and some have warned that Biden’s inability to bounce back quickly after the debate with public vigor is particularly worrisome. Democratic lawmakers have said for days that they want to see Biden in less scripted situations, speaking without notes or a teleprompter, to show that the debate in which he often struggled to finish his sentences was an isolated incident.
The fact that the news conference was coming two weeks after the debate struck some in the party as a telling sign, and several Democratic aides and lawmakers predicted that the president would fare poorly in front of a press corps primed to ask tough questions about his age and acuity.
Several congressional aides and some elected officials, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss private deliberations, said they viewed the news conference as the first real test of the 81-year-old’s cognitive abilities since the June 27 debate, emphasizing that he will have no script and will have to navigate a wide range of issues. The event caps the 75th anniversary NATO summit, which Biden hosted this week, though questions about his policy stance and health are expected to dominate.
Biden will face reporters at a time when many in his party are demoralized by his weak standing in the presidential race, after several polls show him trailing Trump in key battleground states. Although Trump, 78, is only slightly younger than Biden, voters have expressed far greater concern about Biden’s ability to serve for four more years. In a New York Times-Siena College poll released after the debate, 74% of voters say Biden is too old to serve effectively as president; 42% said the same of Trump.
On Tuesday, Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) said on CNN that he fears Biden is on the verge of losing to Trump in a “landfall” and that the White House needs to do more to “demonstrate that they have a plan to win this election.”
On Wednesday, Biden faced a new wave of skepticism, with more lawmakers calling on him to step aside or saying they wanted him to show more political vitality before they could fully endorse him. Democratic Sen. Peter Welch (Vt.) became the first senator to publicly call on Biden to step down, in an op-ed for The Washington Post. Speaking on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) repeatedly urged Biden to make a decision about whether to stay in the presidential race, despite the president’s insistence that he has already made up his mind to remain at the top of the Democratic ticket.
Also on Wednesday, George Clooney, the Hollywood actor and a top fundraiser for Biden’s reelection, called for the president to be replaced as the Democratic nominee. In a New York Times op-ed, Clooney, who hosted Biden for a fundraiser last month, suggested the president was losing the battle against time.
“It’s devastating to say this, but the Joe Biden I was with three weeks ago at the fundraiser was not the ‘big f–ing deal’ Joe Biden of 2010,” Clooney wrote. “He wasn’t even the Joe Biden of 2020. He was the same guy we all saw at the debate.”
The doubts surrounding the president make the news conference even more complicated, according to several Democratic officials who said they would be watching closely for any missteps or signs of weakness. For their part, Biden’s advisers are hoping that a strong performance Thursday will help him finally put the debate drama behind him.
Biden’s supporters and detractors alike have pointed out that timing could be on his side. If he can get through the news conference without triggering another wave of panic within the party, attention will turn to Trump and the Republicans, who will hold their nominating convention next week. Trump is expected to announce his running mate in the coming days, and Congress will be in recess next week.
Biden hasn’t always been a great performer at major solo news conferences, which have been rare during his presidency.
In January 2022, Biden stood before reporters for nearly two hours, answering questions on a wide range of topics and sometimes becoming testy with reporters who asked pointed questions.
After the event, first lady Jill Biden chastised the president’s aides for allowing the event to go on for so long, according to the book “American Woman: The Transformation of the Modern First Lady, from Hillary Clinton to Jill Biden.”
Since then, the president has had far fewer substantive engagements with the media compared to his predecessors.
Biden participated in 36 news conferences during his presidency, the fewest number of any president during the same 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.
Biden has largely favored so-called “two-by-two” news conferences, in which he addresses the media standing next to a foreign leader, with questions limited to two reporters from each country’s delegation. He often gives brief answers, rarely engaging in the kind of long, professorial responses adopted by former President Barack Obama or the lengthy questions Trump riffs.
In recent press appearances, Biden has sometimes read his answers from note cards instead of speaking extemporaneously. His voice has sometimes been low and raspy. He has occasionally mixed up names or stopped mid-sentence instead of finishing his thought, with Republicans seizing on each gaffe.
White House advisers, who often determine which reporters are called upon, have sometimes tried to retrieve the content of reporters’ questions ahead of events, a practice that predates Biden’s presidency but has come under greater scrutiny because of the focus on the president’s mental acuity.
Two radio hosts said Saturday that they were He took questions from Biden aides before separate interviews with him last week, a practice the campaign initially defended but later said it would refrain from using in the future.
Republicans responded by suggesting that Biden was mentally unfit to answer impromptu questions. Republican National Committee officials, who have become adept at filming Biden’s missteps during public appearances and broadcasting them, have often lambasted the president at news conferences and suggested, without evidence, that the events were staged.
Beyond the content of his responses and his speech, the president’s demeanor will also be in focus, as party officials examine whether he appears strong enough to deliver the Democrats’ message against Trump in the months ahead.
Biden has at times chafed at reporters’ attempts to ask multiple questions or lashed out at those who asked him about topics he considered off-topic.
The conference will conclude a NATO summit at which the president announced new F-16 fighter jets would be sent to Ukraine, praised member countries for increasing defense spending and awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom to NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg.
While several reporters are likely to question Biden on Thursday, As for the 2024 race and the issues that dominate it – his age, his health and his political standing – world leaders will also be watching the press conference to see whether the president demonstrates competence and skill on a range of global issues.
For his part, Biden has suggested he will use future public appearances to challenge Trump more directly, and he told donors Monday that he would take a different approach in a future debate with the presumptive Republican nominee.
“Attack, attack, attack, attack,” he said.
Jacqueline Alemany, Leigh Ann Caldwell, Marianna Sotomayor, Mariana Alfaro and Liz Goodwin contributed to this report.
News Source : www.washingtonpost.com
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