(Washington) Joe Biden, who now risks his political survival at every public appearance, made a monumental blunder on Thursday, even before the start of a press conference considered crucial for his presidential candidacy.
Speaking at the NATO summit in Washington, the 81-year-old Democrat announced “President Putin” as he welcomed Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky to the stage.
“And now I want to turn it over to the President of Ukraine, who has as much courage as he has determination. Ladies and gentlemen, President Putin,” said the American president, who is not at his first spectacular failure of this kind.
Joe Biden, who orchestrated the Western response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, stepped away from the microphone before realizing his mistake and returning to say: “He’s going to beat President Putin. President Zelensky. I’m so focused on beating Putin.”
His Republican opponents immediately began circulating the video on social media.
The mistake bodes ill ahead of a press conference he is scheduled to give at 6:30 p.m. local time (6:30 p.m. Eastern Time).
The challenge for the American president will be to have repartee, to express himself clearly, in a confident voice, without notes and without a teleprompter.
He was unable to do so on June 27 during a debate against his Republican predecessor Donald Trump, whom he remains determined to confront in the November election.
PHOTO GERALD HERBERT, ARCHIVES ASSOCIATED PRESS
Former President Donald Trump and U.S. President Joe Biden at the June 27 debate in Atlanta.
His opponent’s campaign team predicts a failure.
“If he happens to look at an index card and look for a reporter with a pre-determined question, that’s not being ‘a big boy.’ It’s just saying that everything is staged and scripted,” Jason Miller, a close Trump adviser, told Newsmax.
” Big boy ”
The White House used the curious term “big-boy news conference” for Thursday’s meeting, suggesting that it would be more substantive and spontaneous than the short, well-marked question-and-answer sessions it usually indulges in.
On the Democratic side, many doubt that the 81-year-old president can still save his candidacy, a few weeks before the nomination convention which will be held from August 19 to 22 in Chicago.
“Neither the press conference tonight nor the interview scheduled for Monday [sur la chaîne NBC] “will not provide the president with the political salvation he seeks,” New York City lawmaker Ritchie Torres said in a statement.
According to New York Timesthe campaign team of Joe Biden and his running mate Kamala Harris has begun to quietly conduct polls on the chances of the vice president, aged 59, against Donald Trump.
PHOTO ALLISON JOYCE, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
Kamala Harris, Vice President of the United States
The main person concerned – the first woman, but also the first person of African-American and Asian origin in this role – has so far been unfailingly loyal.
“We knew this election would be difficult […] But if there’s one thing we know about our President Joe Biden, it’s that he’s a fighter!” she said Thursday during a meeting in North Carolina, promising in a forceful speech: “We’re going to keep fighting.”
Since becoming president, Joe Biden has given 36 press conferences, according to researcher Martha Joynt Kumar, cited by Axios. Among his last six predecessors, only Republican Ronald Reagan had done fewer.
The Democrat, a former stutterer, has never been a flamboyant orator, especially when he improvises. With age, his speeches have become more and more laborious.
Mitterrand and Kohl
He also has a history of spectacular failures.
In February, he repeatedly mentioned former French President François Mitterrand, who died in 1996, instead of Emmanuel Macron, and mentioned the late Helmut Kohl instead of former German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
This new blunder on Thursday is a further blow to the octogenarian president, who has so far resisted calls to step down from his party, as well as from celebrities and wealthy people in the entertainment world.
In an Ipsos poll released Thursday by the Washington Post and ABC, 67% of respondents believe the American president should withdraw his candidacy. Among Democratic voters alone, this is also the majority opinion, at 56%.
Only 24% of voters say Joe Biden is “mentally sharp,” while nearly double that (58%) say Donald Trump is.
A dozen Democratic representatives in the House of Representatives and one senator have now openly called on their candidate to drop out.
Biden team says no other Democrat would do better
Mr Biden’s campaign has laid out what it sees as its strategy for retaining the White House in a new memo, saying that winning the “blue wall” states of Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan is the “clearest path” to victory. The team behind the president has alleged that no other Democrat would do better against Republican Donald Trump.
“There is also no indication that anyone else would outperform the president over Trump,” said the memo, signed by campaign chairwoman Jen O’Malley Dillon and campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez.
The memo sought to dismiss “hypothetical polls of alternative candidates” as unreliable. It said such polls “fail to take into account the negative media environment that any Democratic candidate will face.”
With Associated Press
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