Days after the president Joe Biden He said only the “Lord Almighty” could kick him out of the race, laying out a far more down-to-earth scenario at his closely watched news conference Thursday night: His advisers would have to show him he was headed for defeat safe
But leaning into the microphone and whispering to dramatize his challenge, Biden made it clear he didn't foresee that happening.
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“Nobody's saying that,” he said. “No survey says that.”
It seemed to open the door to an alternative and then quickly close it. Of course, “other people can win trump“, he said, but it would be too difficult to “start from scratch”.
The president's first press conference since the debate was a competent presentation, if not a convincing performance. But whether it was enough to stop the hemorrhaging of Democratic support that has threatened to hemorrhage remained in doubt. Minutes after he left the stage, the drip-drip-drip of Democratic members of Congress calling for him to step down continued unabated.
“I think I'm the best qualified to govern,” said Biden, who for decades has singled out naysayers to fuel his own comeback narratives. “And I think I am the best qualified to win“.
The high-stakes, mostly unscripted hour, Biden's longest since the debate that brought down his candidacy, came as some around him had talked about how to persuade him to drop out and while his campaign has ordered a survey to prove it. the strength of Vice President Kamala Harris in a showdown she has insisted will never come.
On Thursday, Biden at times showed his growing frustration with those who had paid him to help him, directly blaming staff members for his excessive schedule and indirectly for some of the recent reports about his candidacy.
As Biden wrapped up his first solo press conference of the year, Republicans seemed more pleased with his steady performance, hoping a wounded Biden would heal, than Democrats. Many in the party now worry that every unscripted Biden appearance through November will be a moment to hold your breath.
“We don't have a problem with the Democratic Party, we have a problem with Joe Biden,” said Pete Giangreco, a former campaign adviser to President Barack Obama, who worries about Biden's ability to push a message against former President Donald Trump. trump “He can't deliver the medicine to cure the disease because it's always going to be about what's wrong with him.”
David Polyansky, a Republican strategist who has worked on past presidential campaigns, including that of Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida last year, described Democrats as “stuck in the mud.”
“They have a sitting president who is no longer capable of winning re-election or even demonstrating to the public that he can do the job effectively,” he said, “but apparently not bad enough for Democratic middlemen to target him.”
Some Democrats had hoped former Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who pointedly suggested Biden needed to make a decision just days after he said he had decided, would take the lead, as a fellow octogenarian who gracefully and in time for the Next. generation of leaders
Biden quickly waved goodbye to the chatter consuming his party that time has run short. When a reporter suggested she had recognized her limits at 81, she shot back in disbelief: “The limits I've recognized that I have?”
Still, while she stopped short of reporting her need to go to bed earlier, she did confirm that she needed more rest. “It would be smarter for me to pace myself a little more,” he said of a job that rarely offers much respite.
He tried to spin his seniority to his advantage with the kind of prepared line allies hoped he would deliver in the debate.
“The only thing age does is help you — it creates a little wisdom if you pay attention,” Biden said.
The post-debate problem is how closely everyone is paying attention, magnifying every mumble and mistake.
And the press conference was not perfect. Biden rejected the first response, referring to “Vice President Trump” instead of Vice President Kamala Harris. It was cut more than once. “Look folks, this is a… well, anyway,” he said.
But he also held his own, comfortably delving into the complexities of foreign affairs — the conflict in the Gaza Strip and the relationship between China and Russia — without the pauses that defined his debate two weeks earlier. It was a level of fluidity that, to say the least, complicated the case for impeaching a sitting president who still wants to run.
Biden was proud and even a tad defensive of his accomplishments. Days after denouncing the “elites” lining up against him, Biden cited elites, including Nobel laureates, who had praised him. “Find me an economist, a mainstream economist, who said we haven't done well,” he said.
“How can I say this without sounding too selfish?” Biden wondered aloud at another point.
He had hardly finished speaking when the desertions resumed.
Rep. Jim Himes of Connecticut, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, became the latest lawmaker to call for Biden to step down. “We have to put forward the strongest candidate,” he said.
He was soon joined by Reps. Scott Peters of California and Eric Sorensen of Illinois, who became the 18th congressional Democrat to call on Biden to drop out of the race.
Biden at the news conference and his campaign in a memo earlier Thursday argued it was time to move past the debate and rally behind him. They signaled little change in strategy, arguing the race could still be a referendum on Trump and what the former president might do if given a second term.
“The surest way to help Donald Trump is to spend his convention talking about our nominating process instead of the MAGA extremism that will be on the stage in Milwaukee,” said the memo, which was signed by the president of the campaign, Jennifer O'Malley Dillon. and the campaign manager, Julie Chávez Rodríguez.
The news conference produced an odd, bipartisan symmetry on social media, with Republicans and White House aides celebrating Biden's performance, albeit for very different reasons.
“Joe Biden is crushing it. Build Back Better,” Richard Grenell, a Trump loyalist hoping to become secretary of state, wrote in a sarcasm-filled post.
“Tonight President Biden was knowledgeable, engaging and capable,” posted Sen. Chris Coons, a confidant of the president from his home state of Delaware. “No one is better prepared to lead our nation forward than Joe Biden.”
Democrats have demanded that Biden do more to reassure the public, about three-quarters of whom see him as too old to do the job effectively, and his next test is set for Monday in an interview with NBC's Lester Holt News that will coincide with the first night of the Republican National Convention.
Biden's final three words Thursday revealed much about the state of a race that has become overwhelmingly focused on him over the past two weeks. They were a plea to start focusing on their rival.
“Listen to him,” Biden said of Trump.
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