As Biden answered questions from reporters at the NATO summit about his intellectual acuity and whether he has what it takes to win the 2024 presidential election, several Democrats and progressives rushed to Biden’s defense.
Amid growing calls from members of his own party for him to step aside from the presidential race, Biden rejected the notion that he was “slowing down” and insisted at a press conference on Wednesday night that he was “committed to running” in this year’s election.
“Am I getting the job done? Can you name someone who’s passed more significant legislation than me in three and a half years? I created 2,000 jobs just last week. So if I slow down, I’m not getting the job done,” Biden said. “That’s a sign that I shouldn’t be doing my job. But there’s no sign of that yet. None at all.”
Despite multiple gaffes during the press conference, several Democrats took to social media to defend the president’s actions.
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President Biden speaks during a press conference during the NATO summit in Washington, DC, on July 11, 2024. (Graham Sloane/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
“To answer any questions you may have, Joe Biden does not have a PhD in foreign affairs. He’s just very, very smart,” White House deputy press secretary Andrew Bates said. I wrote in the post To X.
Biden’s former communications director, Kate Bedingfield, also weighed in on the president’s performance, arguing that “the president needed to make a big impact tonight, and he did.”
“Tonight Joe Biden spoke at length and in detail about the major national security issues he is addressing and calmly but forcefully defended his views on the state of the campaign. 50 minutes of Q&A. There was a need for a big presence tonight and there was,” she said in a post on X.
David Axelrod, an adviser to former President Barack Obama, also praised the president’s work, saying in a post on X that Biden is “very familiar with national security issues.”
“The wisdom of holding this press conference at NATO is clear. Though erratic on other matters, @POTUS is remarkably calm on national security issues.” Axelrod wrote.
Joel Rubin, a former senior State Department official during the Obama administration, called Trump’s performance “very strong.”
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“Frankly, this was a very powerful performance. @POTUS delivered a master class on how foreign and domestic policy intersect, and explained why America’s global leadership matters to people at home. Well done, Mr. President.” Rubin wrote: In post X.
One Democratic activist As far as I can tell He believes there are “people who owe President Biden an apology” following the president’s press conference.
The press conference was Biden’s first since his disastrous June 27 debate with former President Donald Trump, in which the president appeared to lose his train of thought and made incorrect statements on several issues.
At the start of his speech, when asked by an Associated Press reporter if he had concerns about whether Harris could beat Trump if she became the top candidate, Biden mistakenly referred to Vice President Harris as “President Trump.”
President Biden answers questions from reporters during a press conference during the NATO Summit in Washington, DC, on July 11, 2024. (Graham Sloane/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
“Look, I wouldn’t have picked President Trump as my vice president,” Biden said, seemingly unaware of his mistake. “So I don’t think she’s qualified to be president.” [if I thought] She is not fit to be president.”
The gaffe came just hours after Biden mistakenly referred to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky as Russian President Vladimir Putin, a gaffe he quickly corrected at the time.
Axelrod is Another post about X He said he found it “disturbing” that Biden had conflated Harris with Trump.
But some Democrats still have doubts about whether Biden is fit to be president.
One Democratic source told Fox News that the president’s demeanor at the press conference “couldn’t have been worse, unless it was Hunter.” [Biden] We need amnesty.”
Axelrod also said: President Trump expressed his concerns about the issue on social media, writing, “If what he said at the end of the press conference is true, it appears the Biden campaign has not been very forthcoming with him about what the data shows. The age issue is a big, possibly insurmountable, concern and makes it very unlikely he will win.”
President Biden spoke at a campaign rally in Madison, Wisconsin. (Photo by SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images)
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Amid growing speculation and calls for Biden to back out, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said earlier this week that Democrats were keeping their thinking on Biden private “until we see how this week turns out.”
“I think we’re just going to wait and see,” she said on MSNBC. “Whatever you’re thinking, you don’t need to tell anybody privately or bring it up until you see how this week plays out.”
