(Washington) Joe Biden fought harder on Thursday during a long press conference, rather controlled although obscured by spectacular slips of the tongue, but his candidacy for a second term remains precarious.
The American president had barely completed an hour of discussions with journalists when two additional Democrats asked him to give up their place.
Does this bode well for a wave of such calls? The next few days will tell whether Biden has simply bought a little time before a withdrawal that many supporters say is inevitable, or whether he has stemmed the simmering revolt in his party.
“I am determined to be a candidate, but I think it is important to allay fears,” he acknowledged, promising to campaign actively.
A former stutterer, the American president has never been a flamboyant orator. On Thursday, he sometimes stammered or struggled to finish his sentences, but also demonstrated his mastery of international issues in particular, without notes or a teleprompter.
In short, nothing comparable to his disastrous debate on June 27 against Donald Trump, during which he appeared very confused and tired.
“Finish the job”
Joe Biden has repeatedly said he wants to “finish the job” started in 2020, and assured that he would still be able, if re-elected, to “manage” the Chinese and Russian presidents, Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin, in three years.
“I’ve had three intense and substantial neurological examinations” by a neurologist, the last one “in February,” he recalled, and “they say I’m in good shape.”
He once again brushed aside poor poll numbers and claimed he was “best qualified” to win in November against his Republican predecessor.
“There are other people who could also beat Trump but it is terribly difficult to start from scratch,” he said, four months before the presidential election.
The Democratic leader, whose mental acuity and physical stamina are hotly debated, only acknowledged that he needed to “take it easy a little more.”
Joe Biden, who is no stranger to this, also made some spectacular slips of the tongue on Thursday, which immediately delighted his rival.
In response to the first question at the press conference, he said: “I would not have chosen Vice President Trump to be vice president if I did not think she was qualified to be president.”
He obviously wanted to mention Vice President Kamala Harris.
“Good job, Joe,” Donald Trump quipped on his Truth Social network.
Joe Biden did not recover, as he had done shortly before, by committing another monumental blunder.
“President Putin”
Speaking at the NATO summit in Washington, he announced “President Putin” as he welcomed Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky on 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,” the American president said, before almost immediately correcting himself.
“I’m so focused on beating Putin,” he justified himself.
Many Democrats doubt that the American president can still save his candidacy, a few weeks before the nomination convention which will be held from August 19 to 22 in Chicago.
Some have already said this publicly, without the calls for its withdrawal being massive for the moment, or relayed by party leaders.
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.
CBS says many Democratic lawmakers are already ready to publicly call for withdrawal, like the dozen or so who have already done so.
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%.
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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