President Joe Biden mixed up the names of Vice President Kamala Harris and his Republican rival Donald Trump
on Thursday but insisted he was pushing ahead with his re-election bid
even as more of his fellow Democrats urged him to end his campaign.
Biden,
81, touted his decades of experience on the world stage as he argued
that he was uniquely qualified to defeat former President Trump, 78, and lead the U.S. for another four-year term.
"The
only thing age does is creates a little bit of wisdom if you pay
attention," said Biden, who is already the oldest person to ever serve
as president.
Since
his poor performance against Trump in a presidential debate two weeks
ago, Biden has faced growing doubts from donors, supporters and fellow
Democrats about his ability to win the Nov. 5 election and keep up with the demands of the job.
He
probably did not help his case when he mixed up his vice president and
his Republican rival at the outset of the news conference, which lasted
nearly an hour.
"Look,
I wouldn't have picked Vice President Trump to be vice president if she
was not qualified to be president. So start there," Biden said as he
responded to a question from Reuters about his confidence in Harris.
The
president coughed frequently and occasionally garbled his responses at
the outset of the news conference, and towards the end his answers
frequently trailed off before he had completed his thoughts.
At the same
time, he delivered detailed responses on issues such as the Israel-Gaza
conflict and the need for western countries to produce more military
weaponry to counter Russia and China.
That
came a few hours after Biden mistakenly referred to Ukrainian President
Volodymyr Zelenskiy as "President Putin" at the NATO summit in
Washington, drawing gasps from those in the room.
Biden's campaign has been on the ropes for two weeks, since his poor debate performance against Trump.
At
least 16 of the 213 Democrats in the House and one of the Senate's 51
Democrats have appealed publicly to the president to withdraw from the
race.
Representative Jim Himes of Connecticut joined that group shortly after the press conference ended.
"We
must put forth the strongest candidate possible to confront the threat
posed by Trump's promised MAGA authoritarianism," he said. "I no longer
believe that is Joe Biden."
Biden overcame a childhood stutter and has frequently mangled names and misspoken throughout his political career.
Biden
said his health is in good shape and that he would take another
neurological exam to determine his mental acuity if his doctors
recommended it.
SLIP-UPS
A
White House official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Reuters
they did not know whether the news conference would shore up support on
Capitol Hill.
Biden
donor John Morgan called his performance "fantastic", but another
donor, likewise speaking on condition of anonymity, said they did not
think it would help, given the heightened scrutiny of Biden's verbal
slip-ups.
Biden
said he needed to "pace myself" a little more and complained that his
aides sometimes overscheduled him. "I'm catching hell from my wife," he
said.
The
news conference gave Biden an opportunity to tout his successes on the
world stage at the close of the NATO summit in Washington, where members
extended support to Ukraine to combat the invasion that Russian
President Vladimir Putin launched in February 2022.
Biden argued Trump would weaken NATO and drive up prices for U.S. consumers by imposing steep tariffs on imported goods.
He took credit for bringing Sweden and Finland into the alliance, and said he brought together 50 nations to support Ukraine.
He
also said the Israel-Gaza war must end now and that Israel must not
occupy the enclave after the war, adding that both Israel and Hamas had
agreed on his ceasefire framework but that there were still gaps to
close.
Separately on Thursday, United Auto Workers union officials met to discuss their concerns
with his candidacy, three sources familiar with the matter said, after
endorsing Biden in January. The 400,000-member union has a big presence
in industrial states like Michigan that Biden will need to carry to win
re-election.
No
Democratic leaders in Congress have called for Biden to end his
candidacy, though former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on Wednesday
declined to say he should stay in the race.
The campaign has commissioned a survey to test how Vice President Kamala Harris
would fare if she were to replace Biden as candidate, according to a
source with knowledge of the matter. A Reuters/Ipsos poll last week
found Harris would fare no better than Biden in a matchup with Trump.
Prominent
donors including actor George Clooney have called on Biden to drop out,
and there were signs that concerns are growing within Biden's campaign
operation as well.
The
New York Times reported that some longtime advisers were considering
ways to convince him to drop his reelection bid, while NBC News reported
that some campaign staffers thought he stood no chance of winning the
election.
The
Reuters/Ipsos poll found Biden and Trump tied at 40% each. Other
opinion polls have found Trump leading Biden, and some strategists have
warned that Trump stood a chance of winning reliably Democratic states
like New Hampshire and Minnesota.
In
a strategy memo, the campaign argued that it has always expected a
close election and could win by focusing on three battleground states:
Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin.
If
he won those states, along with others considered to be reliably
Democratic, he would win 270 electoral votes -- the bare minimum needed
to secure the presidency. Biden won 306 electoral votes in 2020.
The campaign characterized other battleground states he won in 2020 as "not out of reach." See video here.
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