President Biden's
solo press conference
in Washington on Thursday was marked by a notable
gaffe
when he mistakenly referred to vice president
Kamala Harris
as "vice president Trump" while responding to the opening question.
The president said, "Look, I wouldn't have picked vice president Trump to be vice president [if] I think she's not qualified to be president," confusing Harris with former president,
Donald Trump
.
When a reporter pointed out the error in the final question, asking Biden to comment on the blunder that Trump had used to mock him, the president simply smiled and replied, "Listen to him," before exiting the stage.
Earlier, during a Nato event, before the press conference, Biden mistakenly even referred to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as "President Putin". "And now I want to hand it over to the president of Ukraine, who has as much courage as he has determination, ladies and gentlemen, President Putin," Biden said at the Nato summit in Washington on July 10.
The solo press conference, which lasted an hour, was seen as a crucial opportunity for Biden to demonstrate his ability to handle challenging questions and think on his feet in an unscripted setting, especially amidst growing pressure from Democrats for him to withdraw from the 2024
presidential race. This pressure had intensified following his poor performance in the June 27 CNN debate against Donald Trump and his campaign's subsequent inability to address voters' concerns about his health.
However, the press conference did not appear to alleviate Democrats' worries. Shortly after Biden left the stage, house representative Jim Himes of Connecticut, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, and house representative Scott Peters, D-Calif, released statements calling for the president to exit the race. Peters said, "The stakes are high, and we are on a losing course."
Throughout the week and during the press conference, Biden firmly rejected any suggestion that he should or would drop out, maintaining that he was the most capable candidate to defeat Trump in November. He did, however, acknowledge that he would consider leaving the race if his team advised him that there was "no way" he could win.
Despite his intention to salvage his struggling campaign, the president made several verbal missteps and appeared to lose his train of thought on multiple occasions while answering reporters' questions during the solo news conference. Trump and his campaign shared several clips of Biden's gaffes on Truth Social.
In another notable slip, Biden referred to his chief of staff as "my commander in chief" before correcting himself. The president said that he -- the American commander-in-chief -- would consult "my commander-in-chief" on questions about arming Ukraine.
The solo news conference was his first in eight months. Biden's last solo news conference was in November, during a summit with President Xi Jinping of China.
English (US) ·