After repeated pushbacks, President Biden’s much-anticipated press conference did little Thursday night to change that his presidency and reelection chances remain in crisis, thanks to a pre-selected list of reporters who gingerly went about his cognitive impairment and, in some cases, strayed completely from the story that’s come to dominate the global body politic.
Biden gave roughly seven-and-a-half minutes of opening remarks and then admitted this would be a farce by revealing he had “been given a list of people to call on here.”
Reuters’s Jeff Mason led off with a tractor-trailer sized question listing off concerns about his presidency from supporters, but no more than that. In turn, it lacked any bite (click “expand”):
MASON: Mr. President, your political future has hung over the NATO summit a little bit this week. Speaker Pelosi made a point of suggesting your decision on whether to stay in the race was still open. George Clooney and a handful of lawmakers have called on you to step aside. Reuters has reported tonight that UAW leadership is concerned about your ability to win.
BIDEN: UAW just endorsed me, but go ahead.
MASON: Thank you. My question for you is how are you incorporating these developments into your decision to stay and separately, what concerns do you have about Vice President Harris's ability to beat Donald Trump if she were at the top of the ticket?
Unfortunately for Mason, his question would largely be forgotten thanks to Biden’s immediate reply that he “wouldn't have picked Vice President Trump to be vice president if” he “didn't think she's not qualified to be president”.
AFP’s Danny Kemp went next and framed his query about Biden’s mental decline from the left by fretting this discussion has “become damaging for America’s standing in the world.”
CBS’s Nancy Cordes also came from the left, worrying about his “legacy” being undone by Trump and then lobbing a softball asking Biden to fawn over Harris (click “expand”):
You mentioned other instances in history where presidents have faced a challenge. But what makes this moment in history so unique is that it is not your enemies that are calling on you to reconsider your decision to stay in the race, it is your friends, supporters, people who think you’ve done a great job over the past four years. Have he spent time thinking about what it would mean for your legacy, which you’ve worked decades to build, if you stay in the race despite the concerns voters say they have and you lose to someone who you yourself have already said is unfit to return to the Oval Office?
(....)
As a follow-up, sir, you mentioned that your Vice President Kamala Harris would be ready to serve on day one. Could you elaborate on that? What is it about her attributes and accomplishments over the last four years that make her ready to serve on day one, if necessary?
Financial Times’s Felicia Schwartz had the most direct question (if one could even call it that): “The presidency is the most straining job in the world and it’s 24/7. How can you say you will be up for that next year, in two years, in four years given the limits you have acknowledged that you have today? There’s been reporting that you've been told you need to go to bed earlier and end your evening around 8.”
The AP’s Zeke Miller cowardly played ball with the regime by allowing Biden to trail off and kill time with a non-reelection question. Even on the topic of his teetering presidency, Miller posed it as some sort of homework assignment (click “expand”):
MILLER: Two questions for you. First, on the NATO summit, President Zelenskyy, in your meeting with him, he pressed you to lift the limitations on the Ukrainian use of American weapons, saying that — in his public remarks afterwards, saying that Ukraine cannot win the war unless those limitations are lifted. Are you reconsidering your position on that? And then, secondly, following up on Felicia’s question there, leaders of your own party have said that they are not worried about that debate. They’re worried about the next bad night and the bad night after that. How can you reassure the American people you are up to this task and that there will not be more bad nights at a debate stage or somewhere else?
(....)
BIDEN: The second question related to?
MILLER: Bad nights. Bad nights, sir. How can you reassure the American people you won't have more bad nights, whether they be on a debate stage or on some matter of foreign policy?
Polish radio reporter Marek Wałkuski and The New York Times’s David Sanger continued this trend of eagerly helping Biden change the subject to China and the war between Russia and Ukraine (click “expand”):
WAŁKUSKI: How are you?
BIDEN: I am well.
WAŁKUSKI: The elections in U.S. have consequences around the world. You have a pretty high standing in Europe. I just asked President Macron about you and he said we are happy to have you as the President of the United States, but there is a concern for many people in Poland, across Europe are worried that the former President may win the election. And there is a lot of concern that Donald Trump may weaken NATO, stop supporting Ukraine, or push Ukraine to give up territory to Russia.
BIDEN: You are correct.
WAŁKUSKI: You yourself was warning just a few minutes ago about it. So, my question is, do you think that Europe will be left on its own if Donald Trump wins the election? And what’s your advice to European leaders to prepare for possible U.S. disengagement?
(....)
SANGER: Mr. President, the NATO declaration that was issued yesterday, it was very notable because it described China as a decisive enabler of the war in Ukraine — for its provision of critical goods to the Russians. That’s part of a broader partnership that seems to have cemented in place in the past two or three years. I think one that you were a little bit doubtful of when we asked you about it some time ago. So, I’d be interested to know whether you have a strategy now of trying to interrupt the partnership between China and Russia? And whether or not, in a second term, you would pursue that, if you could describe that strategy to us. And, along the way, could you also tell us whether you think — just a follow-up on Felicia's question — that if you were in a room with Vladimir Putin again the way you were three years ago or with President Xi that, a few years from now, you will be able to go negotiate with them and handle them one-on-one?
(....)
SANGER: Could you [inaudible] your strategy to interrupt that impact?
(....)
SANGER: Mr. President, I’m not sure you answered on whether you would be ready to go deal with Putin and Xi two or three years from now.
A softball press conference wasn’t complete without taxpayer-funded NPR, but it didn’t start off all that well as Biden referred to Asma Khalid as “Hassam”.
Once she corrected him, she brought up the Israel-Hamas war and invited him to state whether “there's anything you feel personally you wish you would have done differently over the course of the war.”
Her other question came from the hard left: “I remember covering your campaign in 2020, and there was a moment where you referred to yourself as a ‘bridge candidacy’, a transition to a generation of younger leaders. I want to understand what changed?”
After Khalid asked that last question twice to really drive home her agenda, Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre shouted, “last question”, but Biden flubbed by calling out for both Scripps News’s Haley Bull and Bloomberg’s Josh Wingrove, so he said he’d let both speak.
Wingrove went first with a weak sauce inquiry about whether Biden’s going to listen to “Democrats...on the Hill watching tonight” who will take “the next two weeks” to assess whether he should continue with his reelection.
His follow-up was the only other question that came close to Schwartz’s as it brought up cognitive testing:
[Inaudible] we’ve had some discussions over the few days with your press secretary about the question of health exams, and you said you take a cognitive test every day in this job. Are you open to taking another physical or test before the election? Governor Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, for instance, said it wouldn't hurt to take a test.
After doling out another Ukraine question, Bull asked Biden to consider whether he’d let delegates to the Democratic National Convention “vote their conscience”, even if it meant supporting someone else.
A few minutes later, Biden turned to walk off stage and, amid reporters like Fox’s Peter Doocy shouting and Jean-Pierre screaming that “this ends tonight’s press conference," NBC’s Peter Alexander caught Biden’s attention:
Respectfully, earlier, you misspoke in your opening answer. You referred to Vice President Harris as Vice President Trump. Right now, Donald Trump is using that mock your age and your memory. How do you combat that criticism from tonight?
Biden offered a bizarre, three-word answer on his way off the podium for good: “Listen to him.”
To see the transcript of the questions from reporters to the President, click here.
