What Biden’s news conference did, and didn’t, clear up

With the future of his reelection campaign in doubt, President Joe Biden made a move on Thursday that was very unusual for him: He answered a lot of questions from reporters in a press conference.

The press conference, at the close of this week’s NATO summit in Washington, went fine for Biden. He took questions for about an hour, speaking about several foreign policy, economic, and political issues. Some of his foreign policy responses in particular were praised as detailed and substantive.

Now, he did at one point mention “Vice President Trump” when he meant to say “Vice President Harris.” And at an earlier event he accidentally introduced Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky as “President Putin.” But they were simple slips of the tongue and not borne of substantive confusion — Biden spoke extensively on the Ukraine/Russia war and about Harris’s qualifications.

Biden’s performance was not exactly commanding, but he didn’t ever seem lost or fully out of it as he did at points in the debate. He did just fine.

The question is whether “just fine” is good enough to stem what’s becoming a tide of Democratic calls for him to step aside.

Just a few days earlier, it seemed Biden had managed to ride out the storm over his bad debate performance. But a slew of bad news Wednesday and prior to the press conference Thursday ensued.

His fundraising is plummeting. His own campaign aides are telling reporters he should quit. More Democrats have come out publicly against him staying in the race, with one going so far as to say he should resign the presidency. Reports circulated that top party figures — Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, United Auto Workers president Shawn Fain — have in private been less than fully supportive of Biden.

Biden’s team had announced plans for the presser last week, as part of a strategy for the president to prove his fitness by doing more unscripted public events. In addition to his interview with ABC News last week and a call-in chat with MSNBC’s Morning Joe program, the president called into two local radio stations last week. But the radio interviews became problematic when it was reported that the Biden campaign had drafted the questions the hosts would ask and that the campaign had requested that two comments Biden made be edited out.

Then, by the time the NATO press conference drew near, leaks suggested that, even if it went well, it might not help him much. Axios’s Andrew Solender reported that House Democrats were poised to issue “a flood of new statements urging Joe Biden to exit the 2024 race” no matter how the presser went.

Margaret Brennan of CBS News said that “dozens” of such statements from lawmakers were expected in a pre-planned coordinated effort and that a source predicted that, by next week, Biden would find it untenable to stay on the ticket.

At the press conference, Biden professed utter confidence that everything would be fine for his campaign.

Asked if he’d free Democratic convention delegates pledged to him to back someone else, Biden said such delegates were “free to do whatever they want.” If delegates decided at the convention to back someone else, that would be democracy in action, he said, but “that’s not gonna happen.”

Asked what would spur him to end his campaign, he said he’d only do so if his advisers told him “there’s no way you can win.” But, he added, “No one’s saying that.”

Other presidents, he asserted, had been trailing at this point by more than he is now. He would campaign hard and turn things around.

“We’re just gonna keep moving,” he said.

Shortly after the press conference ended, Rep. Jim Himes (D-CT) released a statement calling President Biden “a remarkable leader.”

“I hope,” Rep. Himes added, that he “will step away from the presidential campaign.”

Which means that, despite the presser, Thursday ended close to where it began: with Democrats at an impasse between a party skeptical of its nominee and a nominee resolute about staying in the race.