President Joe Biden’s much-touted press conference was presidential and newsy Thursday night: less strident than last week’s ABC interview, more deliberate and open to Democrats’ concerns. It also had some traditional bumbly Biden moments. The political question moving forward: Which part will people remember?
“It’s a Rorschach. If you were ready to boot going in, you’ll still want to. If you were ready to defend, you still will. If you were on the fence on either direction, you’re still there,” said a White House aide. “Hinging the fate of democracy on each of these pretty spaced out, unscripted events is exhausting and unsustainable.”
That’s the political box Biden finds himself in, and the event marking the end of a NATO summit Biden hosted in Washington again showcased it.
Biden acknowledged during the conference that his debate performance was a “stupid mistake” but continued to press that it was one bad night, not the new norm.
“I always have an inclination, whether I was playing sports or doing politics, just to keep going, not stop,” Biden said. “So I’ve got to just pace myself a little more.”
But even as he did basically what he said he was going to do in the lead-up — take questions on a wide range of topics from multiple reporters — some Democrats looking on still wanted more.
“Compared to the debate, he’s doing fantastic. But the damage is done. You can’t see him as anything other than just old,” a Democratic strategist in a battleground state live-texted NOTUS. Rep. Jim Himes, the top Democrat on the Intelligence Committee, called on Biden to end his reelection campaign the moment the conference ended.
Other viewers were seeing a different scene.
“Biden knows his shit,” texted a senior Democratic aide. “Detailed foreign policy considerations that seem much more like what people have been saying is the Biden they see in private.”
And others were just happy not to be unhappy, if only briefly.
“Better!” texted a strategist who has been among those Democratic allies despondent at the potential down-ballot effects of a Biden loss. But, later: “seems like the consensus is it doesn’t stop the bleeding fully.”
The event was much closer to classic Biden than the debate was. But classic Biden is no longer cutting it with the Democrats frustrated with him. In an extremely common Biden-style gaffe at a NATO event shortly before the conference, he called Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy “President Putin” before quickly correcting himself and cracking a joke. Then, during the press conference, he referred to Vice President Kamala Harris as “Vice President Trump.”
“It’s the type of slight that would never have been noticed in earlier times,” Texas Rep. Lloyd Doggett, the first Hill Democrat to publicly call for Biden to leave the race after the debate last month, said on CNN after Biden said “President Putin.” “But if the focus from now until November is on the stumbles and fumbles, minor though they may be, rather than on Donald Trump’s lies, then we will lose.”
The Putin moment was not allowed to pass, as it might have been during Biden’s Senate career or during his Uncle Joe vice presidential era, or even earlier in his presidency. As other partner countries held their own briefings prior to Biden’s, the slip became a central talking point.
Biden worked hard to turn the event into what it likely would have been in an alternate universe where the June prime-time debate had not fundamentally altered the way many Democrats view his candidacy. Biden kicked things off by attacking Trump over his swipes at NATO and touted the good economic numbers his administration is enjoying lately. He also tried to steal away Trump’s favorite issue — the southern border — by calling him out for derailing a bipartisan border security bill earlier this year.
The questions were wide-ranging, but they kept coming back to Democrats’ concerns with his political future.
“I’m determined on running, but I think it’s important that I allay fears, I let them see me out there,” Biden said, vowing to keep up a busy campaign schedule in the coming weeks. Biden said he was previewing more opportunities to make clear the differences between him and Trump.
“I’m not in this for my legacy. I’m in this to complete the job I started,” he said.
He also pushed back on polls that show Vice President Harris has a better chance of beating Trump than he does.
“There are other people who could beat Trump too, but it’s awful to start from scratch,” Biden said.
He ended his conference on that same note: that he believes the polls, which routinely show him trailing, still show he has the ability to beat the former president.
He said he wouldn’t end his campaign “unless they came back and said, ‘There’s no way you can win.’”
Biden leaned forward in a whisper, after an hour of speaking, to end the night. “No one’s saying that. No poll says that.”
But even before he started speaking, some Democrats said they were going to continue to ask for more answers about his candidacy.
“It’s a mistake to think one day makes all the difference. One day can only make things worse,” Rep. Mike Quigley told NOTUS Thursday morning. Quigley was elected the same year Biden became vice president and is one of the handful calling on him to exit the race.
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Evan McMorris-Santoro is a reporter at NOTUS. Katherine Swartz is a NOTUS reporter and an Allbritton Journalism Institute fellow. NOTUS’ Jasmine Wright, Calen Razor and Riley Rogerson contributed reporting.