The big moment
The most anticipated news conference in recent political history took place Thursday night at the NATO summit in Washington.
With a growing number of Democrats calling for Biden to bow out of the 2024 campaign and otherwise questioning whether he can continue, Biden sought to soothe his party’s — and the country’s — concerns. And all political eyes were upon him.
Below are my quick assessments.
1. Strong, but with stumbles: Democrats’ purgatory continues
After Biden’s widely panned debate performance two weeks ago, revelations about the White House stage-managing local radio interviews, and uneven interviews with ABC News and MSNBC, Biden set a low bar for himself.
Thursday’s performance, in which he largely capably answered questions for nearly an hour, could soothe some fears. But again, the cleared bar was low.
Among the less resounding moments:
- Biden did himself no favors by wrongly referring to Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky as “President Putin” in the run-up to the news conference and calling Vice President Harris “Vice President Trump” early in the questioning.
- On a smaller scale, he briefly referred to taking advice from “my commander in chief,” before correcting himself to say “the chief of staff of the military.”
- He cited having “created 2,000 jobs just last week” — apparently a reference to the recent jobs report of more than 200,000 jobs in the month of June.
- He responded to a question about the United Auto Workers head questioning his ability to win by shooting back, “UAW just endorsed me, but go ahead.” (The UAW endorsement came more than five months ago. It’s not clear if Biden meant to refer to another union organization, the AFL-CIO, which this week re-upped its endorsement of him.)
Small flubs, sure, but a number of them — and ones that suggest moments like those at the debate aren’t behind him.
It’s entirely possible the performance keeps the Democratic Party in a state of purgatory, in which Biden feels emboldened to continue but the concerns don’t disappear. (Some Democrats called for him to bow out even afterward.) We shall see in the hours and days ahead.
2. The news conference played to his strengths, and he was mostly at home
This was a good setup for Biden, in that much of the subject matter pertained to foreign policy. It’s something that, whatever his shortcomings, he knows as the former chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee — and as president.
A case in point: In the middle of the news conference, he spent about 15 minutes responding to two foreign policy questions (with some follow-ups), going into significant detail. He clearly wanted to show something, going off on tangents that weren’t part of the questions.
3. He basically conceded he’s not in great shape politically
Biden claimed Friday that he’s been told the race is a “toss-up.” His review Thursday night was seemingly more sober.
He at one point referred to five incumbent presidents having had lower numbers than he does at this point in their presidencies, a relatively small number.
At another point, he suggested that his numbers in Israel are better than they are domestically, before seeming to catch himself and add that “they’re better than a lot of other people here, too.”
4. He gave an eyebrow-raising response about “what changed”
There has been some talk about whether running for a second term was even the original plan; Biden in 2020, after all, was already set to be the oldest president ever and spoke of being a “bridge” to a younger generation of Democratic leaders. Asked about those comments, he seemed to grant that he had changed his mind.
“What changed was the gravity of the situation I inherited in terms of the economy, our foreign policy and domestic division,” Biden said.
Biden added, somewhat unclearly: “If tomorrow, if we had a circumstance where there was a lineup and I … hadn’t inherited what I did, and we just move things along — anyway, it’s going to change.”
Expect some chatter about that answer.
5. Another answer that won’t calm Democrats’ nerves
Biden in his ABC interview Friday gave more than a few Democrats heartburn by saying he would feel good about the 2024 campaign, even if Donald Trump won, “as long as I gave it my all.” That’s not what Democrats who regard defeating Donald Trump as existential wanted to hear; they want to win.
He gave a somewhat similar answer toward the end Thursday night.
When asked if he would reconsider his campaign if his team told him Harris was in a better position, Biden said he would not.
“No,” Biden said. “Unless they came back and said, ‘There’s no way you can win.’ ”
Biden added in a pronounced whisper: “No one’s saying that. No poll says that.”
The easy answer to that is that Biden thinks he’s best-positioned. But he didn’t go for that. He instead suggested he’d stay in the race even if the odds are long and someone else had a better chance.
Another moment you may have missed
A new Washington Post/Ipsos poll out Thursday is the latest to survey the shifting electoral landscape after the debate two weeks ago.
The good news for Biden is that, more than other polls, it shows a static national race that remains neck and neck (46 percent to 46 percent). The bad news is pretty much everything else.
- 56 percent of Democrats now say that Biden should be replaced — slightly more than previous polls. This despite Biden having claimed Monday that “the average Democrat out there … still want(s) me to be the nominee.”
- More than 8 in 10 registered voters now agree that Biden is too old, which is one of the highest numbers to date.
- While in April, 23 percent of registered voters said Biden’s “mental sharpness” was superior to Trump’s, that’s now dropped to just 14 percent. Just 32 percent of Democrats give Biden the edge.
- 36 percent of Democrats and 48 percent of independents said the debate made them view Biden less favorably — in both cases far more than the percentage who said it made them view him more favorably.
Other polls have shown an average of about a two-point shift against Biden on the ballot, with multiple high-quality polls showing him now down six points nationally. And now even his “good” polls are pretty bad.
A role-reversal moment from history
Biden would very much like congressional Democrats to fall in line for their party’s incumbent president.
But there was a time long ago when a certain senator was so concerned about an incumbent president dragging down his party that he floated a mutiny. That senator was Joe Biden.
Annie Linskey wrote that prescient piece back in December for the Wall Street Journal. Basically, Biden was worried about Jimmy Carter’s 1980 prospects and polled his Democratic colleagues about the prospect of an open convention.
While he was a very early Carter backer in 1976, Biden was withholding his support in mid-1979, saying the party needed a winner and, “I’m not certain that’s Jimmy Carter right now.” He eventually supported Carter.
Annie’s piece is well worth a read.