The response to President Joe Biden’s highly anticipated press conference on Thursday night was like a game of “Choose Your Own Adventure.”
If you like Biden and you’re looking to give him another chance, Thursday night was just fine. Aside from calling his vice president Donald Trump (after earlier in the day introducing Volodymyr Zelensky as Vladimir Putin), Biden was fluent in foreign policy, an area he’s focused on for decades. The president said repeatedly he’s not dropping out of the race. Biden looked fine, answered a number of questions and was able to speak with relative fluidity.
During his first real press conference in months, Biden argued that his long service in Washington left him uniquely prepared to handle the complex matrix of domestic and foreign challenges the country faces. The griping from down-ballot Democrats, Biden explained, was typical election-year bellyaching from pols worried about their own races.
If you’re looking for a reason to ding Biden, you saw a president well past his prime. In addition to the Kamala Harris flub, Biden admitted other Democrats could beat Trump. The 81-year-old Biden complained about being overscheduled by his aides, and he repeatedly shifted into the stage whisper voice he uses in campaign events. Biden declared he’d reconsider his candidacy only if his advisers told him “there’s no way you could win.”
Yet the main takeaway from Biden’s nearly hour-long news conference is that it buys him some more time. It came several hours after three of Biden’s top advisers met privately with Senate Democrats in a bid to convince them he’s not leading the party toward a disaster this fall. According to some Democratic senators, that session got “heated” at times, and “a significant majority” of Senate Democrats believe Biden can’t win reelection.
The twin sessions — one public, one private — will prolong the debate raging inside the Democratic Party about Biden’s future. Yes, Biden didn’t repeat the disaster of June 27. But his standing among Democrats is measured on a day-to-day, event-to-event basis. That’s hardly sustainable.
Here’s Biden:
Biden also mocked Trump at one point for failing to do much on the campaign trail: “And where has Trump been? Riding around in his golf cart, filling out his scorecard before he hits the ball?”
The Republican convention kicks off in Milwaukee next week, which should give the president a bit of a reprieve. Biden also will sit down with NBC News’ Lester Holt on Monday, another chance to convince a national audience of his viability.
Within moments of the news conference ending Thursday night, multiple House Democrats released statements calling on Biden to step aside. Biden world expects more Democrats to come out in opposition to the president in the coming days.
Rep. Jim Himes of Connecticut, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said Biden isn’t the best candidate that Democrats can put forward against Trump. Himes told MSNBC he purposely waited until the NATO summit was over to make his announcement:
Rep. Scott Peters (D-Calif.), a former vice chair of the New Democrat Coalition, followed shortly after with his own exhortation to Biden to step aside. Minutes later, Rep. Eric Sorensen (D-Ill.), a Frontliner, became the 17th House Democrat to publicly tell Biden to forgo his reelection bid, although there are far more in private who hope that happens.
In the choose-your-own-adventure category, Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.) said on CNN that a lot of minds were changing Thursday night after Biden’s news conference.
Here’s some news: House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries is expected to talk to Biden before the weekend, according to sources familiar with the plans. Jeffries has been holding meetings with members of the House Democratic Caucus, many of whom believe Biden will cost the party control of Congress and the White House this November.
The Trump camp, for their part, “are thrilled about Biden’s solid enough performance. It was strong enough, they perceive/hope, to keep his candidacy alive,” our friend Jonathan Swan at the New York Times reported.
