On CNN’s “The Source” broadcast Wednesday, Biden campaign co-chair Sen. Chris Coons (D-Delaware) said he told his Senate colleagues “don’t forget who Joe Biden is. You can’t set the bar so high that 30 years of Joe Biden can’t clear it. He’s always had a little bit of a stutter. He’s always improvised a little bit,” and at a NATO press conference on Thursday, he said, “Don’t set the stakes too high.”
“You’re in a kind of mediation position and you obviously know the president well, but at the same time, you talk to all the senators and you know all of them, and I imagine they come to you. What are you telling the president about what you’re hearing from your fellow senators?” host Kaitlan Collins asked.
Kuhn responded: “Many of my colleagues have expressed concern, and they say we need to see Biden go out and campaign, give long-form interviews, hold informal press conferences. But I tell my colleagues to remember who Joe Biden is. You can’t set the bar too high that 30 years of Joe Biden can’t clear. He’s always had a little bit of a stutter. He’s always been a little bit of an improvisation. In fact, the reason people like Joe Biden is because he really speaks his mind. So one of the things that I struggle with is, he gave a great speech yesterday at the 75th NATO summit, and all that was picked up on another news channel was one sentence where he mispronounced two words. Look, any of us, you or I, any of us who speaks on television or on the Senate floor, any of us who speaks over and over again, there’s always going to be short clips where he doesn’t look perfect. Joe Biden was never a perfect, smooth, flawless speaker, but he always spoke from his heart. What my colleagues needed to see was him being active, he was fighting. And they’re seeing that.”
Collins added, “Tomorrow is his first solo press conference since November. Just to look at the numbers, he’s had 36 press conferences so far since taking office. That’s not as many as his predecessors — Trump had 64 at this point, Obama had 72 and Bush had 82. But he’s going to be speaking tomorrow. How important do you think tomorrow’s press conference is?”
Coons responded, “I don’t think we should set the stakes too high. I think we should see how he performs at his event today with the AFL-CIO. He obviously spoke to a support group and they supported him, but there was no script, there was no teleprompter. I hope he does well. I expect him to do well at his press conference tomorrow.”
to follow Ian Hanchett’s Twitter Ian Hanchett
