Biden Survives His High-Stakes Press Conference: How It Happened

The Atlantic’s David Frum watched the presser and writes that he’s heartbroken after watching “this good man summoning all the power of his will against the weakening of his body”:

Three-quarters of an hour of detailed, sophisticated answers. Mastery of detail. Knowledge of world personalities. Courtesy to the reporters before him. Accurate recall of facts and figures. Justified pride in a record of accomplishment. A spark of sharp humor at the very end.

Also: Verbal stumbles. Thoughts half-finished. Strangled vocal intonations. Flares of unprompted anger. Glimpses of the politician’s inner monologue—resentment at how underappreciated he is—spoken aloud, as it never should be, in all its narcissism and vulnerability.

Art restorers use the term photodegradation to describe the process by which a painting fades. The colors remain present; they just become less vivid. That’s the Joe Biden story.

The rest is here.

NOTUS reporters Evan McMorris-Santoro and Katherine Swartz share some of they feedback they got:

“It’s a Rorschach. If you were ready to boot going in, you’ll still want to. If you were ready to defend, you still will. If you were on the fence on either direction, you’re still there,” said a White House aide. “Hinging the fate of democracy on each of these pretty spaced out, unscripted events is exhausting and unsustainable.” …

“Compared to the debate, he’s doing fantastic. But the damage is done. You can’t see him as anything other than just old,” a Democratic strategist in a battleground state live-texted NOTUS. …

“Biden knows his shit,” texted a senior Democratic aide. “Detailed foreign policy considerations that seem much more like what people have been saying is the Biden they see in private.” …

“Better!” texted a strategist who has been among those Democratic allies despondent at the potential down-ballot effects of a Biden loss. But, later: “seems like the consensus is it doesn’t stop the bleeding fully.”

Politico passes along an unnamed House Democrat’s review:

“Looks and sounds 100x better than he did at debate,” one House Democrat said in a text, adding that Biden was “almost” as good as his last State of the Union appearance, which drew no complaints from his party. “Talked too long. But if this had been the debate none of the last two weeks would’ve happened,” that member added.

Within an hour of the end of the press conference, three more congressmen publicly announced that they think Biden should step aside. That makes 17.

Notes the New York Times’ Jonathan Swan:

People close to Trump are thrilled about Biden’s solid enough performance. It was strong enough, they perceive/hope, to keep his candidacy alive. They foresee a landslide with Biden as their opponent and would rather not have anything happen to introduce risk, change or uncertainty. The status quo is their clear preference, even if they hardly fear Kamala Harris.

Hurry up and wait, probably:

Some representative examples, via X:

However, there are some new concerns, as well:

Before stepping offstage, Biden took a final question about Trump mocking his earlier mix-up of his and Vice-President Harris’s names. He was asked how he combats criticisms like that of his age and memory. The president leaned into the mic and said, “Listen to him” before walking off:

He later posted an additional response on X:

… He was shown data that she could win, and that he was definitely going to lose — but Biden made it clear he didn’t expect that to happen:

At least he’s not still saying that only God can convince him to drop out:

Biden kept the door cracked for a self-defenestration by (a) suggesting his fitness would continue to be tested; (b) by saying that he’d take a cognitive test if his doctors ordered it; and (c) by acknowledging his delegates are free to defect if they want. He did not deliver the sort of reverse Shermanesque statement that would categorically rule out a decision to withdraw.

While it’s true that it’s not even mid-July, the Biden campaign was sure acting like the campaign had really started when it proposed a debate in June.

He also disputed the accuracy of current polls, which show him continuing to lose ground to Trump:

Asked about undergoing cognitive tests, the president broached the subject of age, saying that the only thing that getting older does is “create a bit of wisdom if you’re paying attention.” Biden said that he’s been open about his medical history and records from the beginning, quipping, “You oughta ask Trump for his.”

But he suggested that he was open with undergoing additional testing if his medical team decides that it’s needed. “I am not opposed if my doctors tell me I should have another neurological exam, I’ll do it,” he said.

Almost out of nowhere, Biden suddenly started semi-shouting while talking about gun control:

Biden was asked about how he campaigned in 2020 as a “bridge candidate,” someone who is ready to pass the torch to the next generation of Democratic Party leaders. With the president’s defiance to continue his reelection bid amid calls for him to step aside, he was asked what changed from that moment in time.

“What changed was the gravity of the situation I inherited in terms of the economy, foreign policy and domestic division,” he said.

Biden continued “What I realized was my long time in the Senate, it equipped me to have the wisdom to know how to deal with the Congress to get things done. We got more major legislation passed that no one thought would happen and I want to finish it.

Biden’s remarks on Israel are relatively good demonstration of how this presser is much different from his debate performance, where he frequently jumbled ideas in his answers. Now he’s being long-winded:

Much of the reporting following Biden’s debate performance described the 81-year-old president like any other elderly person who has good days and bad days. In a sense, the past two weeks have given a range of Biden’s abilities. The debate two Thursdays ago was most definitely a bad day. The press conference is, comparatively speaking, a good day. His burden though is that his good days may not be good enough for the three in four voters who say he is too old to serve as president.

In a Truth Social post, he knocked Biden for messing up Harris’s name at the start:

Crooked Joe begins his “Big Boy” Press Conference with, “I wouldn’t have picked Vice President Trump to be vice president, though I think she was not qualified to be president.” Great job, Joe!

A reporter asked Biden about how he can say he’ll be up to the task of serving as president next year and the years that follow. She pointed to reports that he told Democratic governors at a post-debate White House meeting that he intends to go to bed earlier and end his days around 8 p.m.

Biden emphatically denied that reporting. “Look, what I said was, instead of my — every day starting at seven and going to bed at midnight, it’d be smarter for me to pace myself a little more,” he said.

The president said he was partially referring to the start time for certain events, using the example of starting a fundraiser at 8 p.m. so people can get home by 10 p.m. Biden insisted that his schedule has kept a steady pace since the debate.

“And if you’ve looked at my schedule since I made that stupid mistake in the campaign, in the debate. I mean, my schedule has been full bore,” he said.

Biden also took the opportunity to take a shot at his Republican rival Donald Trump. “Where’s Trump been? Riding around on his golf cart? Filling out his scorecard before he hits the ball?” he asked. “Look, he’s done virtually nothing.”

Though the president claimed in this instance that he simply needed to pace himself, he seemed to take a different tack during a subsequent question:

Despite a couple of OMG moments (“Vice-President Trump”!) Biden’s performance was significantly better than in the debate; he did a particularly good job of keeping up with compound questions and remembering to hit Trump now and then. He did not give wavering Democrats an excuse to run him off the ticket. But the whole experience of this press conference showed how very many white-knuckle moments lie ahead for Democrats if Biden stays in the race.

But it’s also possible nothing that short of Biden cartwheeling across the stage chased by 25 million cheering swing voters would change their minds at this point:

Per Maggie Haberman at the New York Times:

Democrats are texting me how sad they find this. Whether people like Biden or don’t like him, he’s been in public service for decades and even those who want him to step aside are struggling watching this.

Fifteen minutes into his speech, Biden’s voice had noticeably slipped. He began his prepared remarks speaking loudly, and was then reduced to whispering. This can’t bode well for the remainder.

The first question went to Reuters’s Jeff Mason who asked Biden about the recent loss in support that he’s seen from members of Congress and how he’s factoring that and also Vice-President Kamala Harris, whose name has been floated as a possible replacement, into his thinking about his future. Biden appeared to misspeak, saying that he wouldn’t have picked “Vice-President Trump” to be his running mate if he didn’t think she was qualified. Unlike his earlier gaffe with Putin and Zelensky, Biden did not correct himself.

The reactions were instant:

BTW, the teleprompters were lowered away:

He’s reading prepared remarks and using a teleprompter.

Any minute now.

Photo: Screencap

Bad news:

According to “four Democratic sources with knowledge” who spoke with CBS News:

Four Democratic sources with knowledge tell CBS News that they expect dozens of Democratic lawmakers over the next 48 hours to issue statements calling for President Biden to step out of the race.  The planning is coordinated, and some of the statements are pre-written, according to two sources. And it’s not clear that anything Mr. Biden says in his high-stakes press conference Thursday night could redirect the expected course of events. 

House Democratic leadership has indicated to members that they should speak their minds, multiple sources told CBS News. One of those well-placed sources predicted that the next three to four days will be “brutal,” and that it may become untenable by sometime next week for the president to continue in the race.  Congressional leaders aren’t expected to publicly speak out themselves or to attempt a forced replacement of Mr. Biden, aiming to avoid a public break with the president out of respect. But there is also a recognition, as two sources put it, that public calls from leadership would trigger stubborn opposition from the president. 

Even though Biden has been mixing up names for years, everything is under a microscope now:

And, of course, there is also the pushback:

It’s possible Biden’s press conference performance tonight will represent a clear tipping-point in the turbulent intra-Democratic debate over the future of his candidacy, either undermining support for him and leading him to move toward a withdrawal from the race or inclining him to stay the course and calming the growing rebellions. More likely it will extend and intensify the debate.

The most immediate audience, of course, is composed of Democratic members of Congress and other party elites who have been notably wavering in the last couple of days. But those conducting and sponsoring public opinion polls will be on high alert as well.

Yes, there may be snap polls after Biden’s presser, though they probably will matter only at the margins unless they reflect such a disaster or triumph that the result is obvious without polling. If Biden’s and the Democratic Party’s course of action is still up in the air, then you can be sure pollsters will as quickly as possible be back into the field. But what will they be measuring, and what will the pundits who rely on them focus on?

Some will want to see whether the presser changed minds as an event in itself. Others will likely treat the presser as another key moment in a Biden crisis that began the minute he opened his mouth at the June 27 debate, and compare his standing now with where it was before the crisis began. And still others will stipulate some sort of level of support that Biden should have if he wants to win — generally well above where’s he’s been for the entire campaign — and measure exactly how far’s he’s fallen. These very different angles will affect perceptions of how Biden did and where he and Democrats go now. Get ready for some serious spin and dizzying swings in elite opinion about public opinion.

Oops:

Pod Save America co-host (and former Obama spokesperson) Tommy Vietor tells Semafor’s Max Tani that “I suspect it’s because they just didn’t have confidence that the candidate could pull it off”:

It’s just so obvious to be like you at some point you have to do a press conference. But [Thursday] at the end of the NATO Summit — waiting that long raises the stakes on it. The obvious advice that everyone’s been giving Biden from the beginning is get out there more, do more interviews or events. The gaffes become less important when you’re constantly talking. And the fact that he has not been doing that for months and months now suggests that they don’t think he’s capable of pulling it off.

The Capitol Hill building where Democratic senators heard from top Biden aides Mike Donilon, Steve Richetti, and Jen O’Malley Dillon had two exits, one on a side street with a nice view of the Supreme Court and the other emptying out onto four lanes of traffic on Constitution Avenue with no shade from the July sun. Most senators invariably used the second, because it was the one where they wouldn’t be interrogated by reporters.

The few who trickled out of the first exit were reluctant to answer any questions at all about the meeting where they sought reassurance from the president’s team that there was a way he could win reelection. They didn’t even answer questions about what was for lunch.

Connecticut’s Richard Blumenthal offered the cryptic answer that “some of my concerns are allayed, some others have been deepened” after the meeting — which Politico reported didn’t seem to have changed anyone’s minds. Still, Blumenthal insisted ahead of Biden’s press conference that he has to “go to American people, not just in one meeting, in one press conference, or in one speech but consistently and constantly.”

“Tonight will be important,” he said. “The press conference will be potentially a turning point, but there has to be more than one.”

Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire offered a panglossian spin, rare among Democrats who have been increasingly stone-faced in recent days. “The best way to defeat Donald Trump is to reelect President Biden,” she said. “I thought the presentation we had was a really excellent one.”

The windows of the building, which was headquarters of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, were plastered with stickers encouraging passersby to look up www.goponabortion.com — a campaign website where they criticized Republicans for their opposition to Roe v. Wade. No one outside was pulling up the website though. They were too busy reading the statement from the latest House member to demand that Biden drop out.

All major news networks will carry the president’s press conference live on television and on their websites, and it will also be streamed live on the White House’s official YouTube channel.

The New York Times notes that the presser will follow a long day of meetings for Biden at the NATO summit, and points out that the last solo press conference Biden gave, last year, lasted about 20 minutes during which he took about a dozen questions. The Times also reports that:

[A]n internal White House planning document contained potential questions that touch on Mr. Biden’s age and mental acuity, calls from lawmakers that he should drop out, and his thinking about why he is staying in the race, as well as items on foreign policy related to the summit, according to two people familiar with the document who were not authorized to speak publicly.

In addition, the document contains questions he might be asked about foreign policy and the discussions at the NATO meeting. Current and former aides to Mr. Biden said he is typically provided with a document before a news conference that contains a categorized list of tough questions across a range of topics. Mr. Biden goes over those questions with aides in the days before he appears before reporters.

This morning at TPM, Josh Marshall noted wrote that the presser “runs the risk of devolving into a proof-of-life hostage video”:

Every stutter, stumble, malapropism, misstep, and gaffe will be dramatically inflated in the current atmosphere. The other real risk is that even if he doesn’t flub his lines or repeat any of the worst of his debate performance, the press conference could end up focused on whether he will stay or go, whether he can win, why Democrats should keep him, why so many have already defected, etc. It would be a difficult performance to pull off under the best of circumstances. These are not the best of circumstances.

It’s not clear if a good performance at the press conference can convince any of his doubters to come back around.