During a crucial press conference that could determine the outcome of the presidential election, Joe Biden courageously defended his foreign policy record despite being bombarded with questions about his mental health and, in another gaffe, mistakenly referred to Kamala Harris as “Vice President Trump.”
Biden spoke extensively about tough foreign policy issues, including competition with China and the Israel-Hamas war, and said he had warned Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to end the occupation of the Gaza Strip.
He said he had been in direct contact with Xi Jinping to warn him against further support for Russia’s war in Ukraine, but had not been in contact with President Vladimir Putin and said he had “no reason to talk to him at this time.”
But Biden, who is seeking the presidency until January 2029, faced an equal number of questions at the press conference about his own mental health – an issue that has clouded his campaign since he called his poor performance in a debate with Donald Trump “that stupid mistake.”
Ultimately, his supporters will say this performance shows he is capable of handling the responsibilities of commander in chief, but it will not convince those who are already questioning his mental health that he can serve another four years in office.
Biden, 81, stressed he would continue to run despite calls from within his party for him to drop out and allow someone else, including Harris, to run in November’s election. Shortly after Biden finished speaking, Rep. Jim Himes of Connecticut, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, called on Biden to drop out of the race.
“Our European allies have never said to us, ‘Joe, don’t run.’ They say, ‘You have to win,'” Biden said after a 32-nation summit in Washington, D.C.
“If I couldn’t slow down and get the job done, that would be a sign that I shouldn’t be doing this,” he said. “But there’s no sign of that. None at all.”
Biden said he would not drop out of the race unless polls showed he had no chance of beating Trump, even if they showed Harris had a better chance of winning the election than him.
Still, he said Harris was also qualified to be president, though he misspelled her name in his endorsement letter: “If Ms. Harris was not qualified to be president, I would not have chosen Mr. Trump as my vice president,” he said.
The gaffe was compounded by the fact that just hours earlier he had referred to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky as “President Putin,” before correcting himself and saying, “We’re going to defeat Putin.”
Biden initially used the NATO summit’s final news conference as a kind of address, touting his national security record of helping Ukraine against Russian aggression and saying the November vote “isn’t just a political issue, it’s a national security issue.”
He then turned to his record on the economy, border security and his efforts to broker peace in the Israeli-Hamas war to shore up his case for the November election.
Biden spoke for 58 minutes, including 50 minutes of unscripted question-and-answer time, and appeared remarkably calm and persuasive as he discussed tough foreign policy issues.
“Don’t repeat the same mistakes America made. [Osama] “Hunt down bin Laden,” Netanyahu reportedly said while trying to thwart the takeover of the Gaza Strip. “We don’t need to occupy anywhere. Hunt down the man who’s done his job.”
He also said that Xi Jinping “[supply] Russia will provide intelligence and capabilities to support Russia’s military in cooperation with North Korea and other nations.”
But he could also get carried away and get confused by details at times. Asked about reports that he had requested an accelerated schedule, he said, “I mean, if you look at my schedule since I made that stupid mistake on the campaign trail or in the debates, I mean, my schedule is full load.”
“Where was Trump?” he continued. “Was he in his golf cart? Was he filling out his scorecard before hitting the ball?”
