Biden's NATO news conference was actually fine, 'Vice President Trump' aside

President Joe Biden ended a three-day NATO summit Thursday with a rare-for-him news conference that was, depending on the media outlet you watch, either “high stakes,” “pivotal,” or, as Joy Reid said on MSNBC, “The most important media appearance in Joe Biden’s very long political career.”

As it turns out, it was just regular — Biden doing Biden things, like using 10 words where one would do, but also showing a command of foreign policy that was impressive, especially given the apparent worry that he wouldn’t be able to string two sentences together.

“A lot of this struck me as just very normal, and I think that is something that he needed,” Reid said afterwards.

'Vice President Trump' was an unfortunate gaffe

And none of that is going to matter.

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Because Biden also did another Biden thing: He made two major flubs during the day.

Earlier, when introducing Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the summit, Biden called him “President Putin.” He caught himself, but the timing, given the incredible media scrutiny, was unfortunate for Biden, to say the least. Asked about it during the news conference, Biden laughed it off and defended the work of the NATO conference.

Then, while answering the first question of the news conference about Vice President Kamala Harris, Biden said, “Look, I wouldn’t have picked Vice President Trump to be vice president if I didn’t think she was qualified to be president.”

Guess what’s getting all the headlines.

Biden gave eight minutes of prepared remarks and then took more than 50 minutes to answer 11 questions, more than pundits were predicting before the news conference began. A lot of his answers went pretty deep into the weeds of foreign policy. He did call on a prearranged list of reporters, but he stuck around and answered an extra question. He also repeatedly defended his fitness for the job.

It doesn’t seem like it is going to be enough, at least from the media’s perspective.

“He didn’t have the catastrophic failure he had at the debate,” Democratic strategist Paul Begala said on CNN. “But he also didn’t have the same sort of command he had at his inaugural.”

The post-game coverage, so to speak, showed just how much scrutiny every word Biden utters from now on will be under. Meanwhile, Donald Trump is off at rallies uttering nonsense.

It’s not that this isn’t covered — the New York Times, in an editorial Thursday, called the former president “unfit to lead.” But Trump’s gaffes, lies, and misstatements have somehow been factored into his personality and candidacy.

Is there anything Biden can do to satisfy Democrats?

Or, as Van Jones put it on CNN, “Any mistake (Biden) makes is a headline, and Donald Trump continues to say crazy stuff, and nobody even notices. That’s a tough situation for him to be in.”

Biden seems to know it. Pressed on why he won’t take a cognitive test, Biden said at the news conference, “No matter what I did, no one’s going to be satisfied.”

Fox News wasn’t, but that’s hardly a surprise. Panels are usually a bane on cable news shows, but Fox News could have used one right off the bat. Instead, we got noted gasbag Jesse Watters, who naturally dug in on the gaffes. Later, he had U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham, a former Trump critic turned sycophant, on, and he was breathing fire.

“This needs to stop,” Graham thundered. “I’m tired of being told there’s nothing wrong with Joe Biden. Do you want him in a room with Putin or (President) Xi (Jinping of China)? I wouldn’t let the guy buy me a car. This was a car wreck, it was a train wreck, it was misleading. We need the president of the United States to take a neurological exam.”

Would it be enough? Some stories take on their own momentum. It’s not clear at this point that Biden can convince doubtful Democrats that he is up to the task of defeating Trump. But he’s going to keep trying. He’ll sit for an interview with Lester Holt of NBC News on Monday, even as CBS News reports that dozens of Democratic lawmakers will ask Biden to step aside.

And the cycle will continue.

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Reach Goodykoontz at bill.goodykoontz@arizonarepublic.com. Facebook: facebook.com/GoodyOnFilm. X: @goodyk. Subscribe to the weekly movies newsletter.