Election Updates: At High-Stakes News Conference, Biden Vows to ‘Finish the Job’ (2024)

Pinned

Here are five takeaways from Biden’s news conference.

Mr. Biden stumbled early but remained defiant in the face of questions about his fitness to continue his campaign. He struggled to articulate a cohesive case for his candidacy, even as he gave a forceful defense of his record and showed a strong command over foreign policy.

Here are five takeaways:

He said he is not leaving.

Mr. Biden vowed to stay in the presidential race. “I’m determined on running,” Mr. Biden said. He dismissed polling showing him losing to Mr. Trump and insisted, “I think I’m the best qualified person to do the job.” But he also acknowledged that the schedule of the presidency had become challenging. “I just got to, just, pace myself a little more,” Mr. Biden said.

Before the debate, he said, his schedule was “full-bore” and he made the “stupid mistake” of too much travel and too many late nights before the debate. Mr. Biden also blamed his staff for the packed days. “I love my staff,” Mr. Biden said. “But they add things. They add things all the time at the very end.”

He got off to a rough start.

Mr. Biden’s response to the first question contained the kind of fumble that has caused Democrats anxiety. Asked about the ability of Vice President Kamala Harris to defeat Mr. Trump, Mr. Biden said that he “wouldn’t have picked Vice President Trump to be vice president did I think she was not qualified to be president.”

He also slipped while answering a question about military assistance to Ukraine, saying he follows the advice of his “commander in chief” — which is the president — before correcting himself and mentioning his senior military commanders. For the most part, though, he avoided the kinds of prolonged, painful moments he experienced during the debate in which he was unable to complete a thought, even as he meandered at times in his answers.

He showed a command of foreign policy.

In the face of questions over his mental acuity, Mr. Biden showed he still had a strong grasp on substance when it came to global affairs. He gave long, detailed answers on various foreign policy matters, including when he said he was prepared to interrupt the relationship between China and Russia. “We have to make sure that Xi understands that there’s a price to pay,” Mr. Biden said, referring to President Xi Jinping of China.

He reiterated his longstanding position that Ukraine should not be allowed to use American weapons to strike deep into Russia, including Moscow and the Kremlin. And he detailed his efforts to get humanitarian aid into Gaza, noting that Israel “occasionally” was “less than cooperative.” He also made the case for the global stakes of the election, saying fellow world leaders had told him that “you’ve got to win” because Mr. Trump would be a disaster for their countries.

He struggled to articulate why he is the best person to defeat Mr. Trump.

Mr. Biden rambled while making the case for his candidacy, launching long-winded recitations of what he has accomplished as president and maintaining that he should have the chance to continue, but never landing on a concise message for why he is the best person to do so.

“I’m determined on running,” he said. “But I think it’s important that I real — I allay fears. I’ve seen — let them see me out there, let me see them out, you know — for the longest time, it was, you know, ‘Biden’s not prepared to sit with us unscripted; Biden is not prepared to’ — and anyway.”

He then began ticking through statistics about the reach of his re-election campaign, and suggested that all the work would be for nothing if he left the race, saying, “It’s awful hard to replace in the near term.” He then veered into talking about his record in the Senate, adding, “Anyway, I’m going to be going around making the case of the things that I think we have to finish and how we can’t afford to lose what we’ve done.”

He said polls showed he was the strongest candidate to beat Mr. Trump, but also conceded for the first time that other Democrats could also do so. “I believe I’m the best qualified to govern and I think I’m the best qualified to win, but there are other people who could beat Trump, too,” he said. “But it’s awful to start from scratch.”

He offered a strong defense of Kamala Harris.

While he vowed to stay in the race, Mr. Biden also on multiple occasions defended the credentials of his vice president. He commended her work defending abortion rights and “her ability to handle almost any issue on the board.” But he also made clear that any polling showing Ms. Harris faring better in a matchup against Mr. Trump would not compel him to step down. “Unless they came back and said there’s no way you can win,” Mr. Biden said. “No one’s saying that.”

Biden says Harris is qualified to be president, but he vows to remain in the race.

“Look, I wouldn’t have picked Vice President Trump to be vice president, did I think she’s not qualified to be president,” Mr. Biden said. “So let’s start there, No. 1. The fact is that the consideration is that I think I’m the most qualified person to run for president. I beat him once, and I will beat him again.”

Polls in recent weeks have generally showed that Ms. Harris is just as likely, or possibly more likely, to defeat Mr. Trump, and the former president’s campaign has ramped up attacks on her recently.

Following Mr. Biden’s disastrous debate performance two weeks ago, panicked donors, political groups and even allies began to rally around Ms. Harris as a potential placement for him. Ms. Harris has stood behind Mr. Biden’s decision to stay in the race.

The Biden campaign has been quietly testing Ms. Harris’s chances against Mr. Trump this week, with some speculation that the results would determine whether Mr. Biden would consider dropping out of the race.

Asked whether he would reconsider his decision to stay in the race if his team showed him data that Ms. Harris would fare better in a matchup, Mr. Biden repeatedly said he would not drop out of the race.

“No,” he said, “unless they came back and said that there’s no way you could win. No one’s saying that.”

When asked about her qualifications, Mr. Biden pointed to Ms. Harris’s work elevating reproductive rights and praised her “ability to handle almost any issue on the board.”

“This was a hell of a prosecutor,” Mr. Biden said of Ms. Harris, who was the district attorney of San Francisco and attorney general of California. “She was a first-rate person, and in the Senate she was really good. I wouldn’t have picked her unless I thought she was qualified to be president. From the very beginning. I made no bones about that. She is qualified to be president. That’s why I picked her.”

Advertisem*nt

SKIP ADVERTIsem*nT

After Biden’s news conference, doubters and defenders weigh in.

“The 2024 election will define the future of American democracy, and we must put forth the strongest candidate possible to confront the threat posed by Trump’s promised MAGA authoritarianism,” Representative Jim Himes, a moderate Democrat from Connecticut and the ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, said in a statement. “I no longer believe that is Joe Biden.”

And Representative Scott Peters of California also argued that Mr. Biden should leave the race, saying, “The stakes are high, and we are on a losing course.”

Later in the evening, Representative Eric Sorensen of Illinois joined their ranks, becoming the 18th Democratic member of either the House or the Senate to call for Mr. Biden to step aside.

More Democrats may defect on Friday, now that members of Congress no longer have to worry about embarrassing the president during the NATO summit that took place in Washington this week. But other Democrats said Mr. Biden’s deft grasp of policy — and the fact that he answered questions for nearly an hour — was heartening, despite awkward moments like a flub in which he referred to Vice President Kamala Harris as “Vice President Trump.”

“Honestly, could the other guy have done any of that?” Senator Chris Coons of Delaware, one of Mr. Biden’s closest allies on Capitol Hill, said of Mr. Trump in an interview. “Anyone concerned about his ability to lead and govern should be reassured.”

On CNN, Representative Steve Cohen of Tennessee said Mr. Biden had “convinced a lot of people he should stay in the race.”

“Much (too much) will be made of Pres Biden flubbing names. But his substance in that presser matters,” Patrick Gaspard, the president of the liberal think tank Center for American Progress, wrote on social media. “His cogent responses on China and Russia. His centering of need for new industrial policy. Even policy points that I might disagree with were robust! Substance matters.”

In a text message, Representative Brendan Boyle of Pennsylvania — a Biden ally — said the president “showed his command of the issues and policy.”

Mr. Biden’s aides, meanwhile, took a victory lap.

Ron Klain, the former White House chief of staff who helped prepare Mr. Biden for the debate that exacerbated questions about the president’s age, wrote that the president had delivered a “strong performance” with a very strong economic message “about lowering prices and growing the economy.”

And on X, Mr. Biden responded to having mixed up his vice president — the former district attorney of San Francisco and the former attorney general of California — and his opponent, Mr. Trump, with a sharp attack.

“By the way: Yes, I know the difference,” Mr. Biden wrote. “One’s a prosecutor, and the other’s a felon.”

Katie Rogers, Neil Vigdor, Robert Jimison and Tim Balk contributed reporting.

Sorensen is the third House Democrat to call for Biden to step aside since he ended his news conference. This brings the total number of members in the House and Senate calling for the president to drop his bid to 18.

Advertisem*nt

SKIP ADVERTIsem*nT

Advertisem*nt

SKIP ADVERTIsem*nT

Advertisem*nt

SKIP ADVERTIsem*nT

Advertisem*nt

SKIP ADVERTIsem*nT

Advertisem*nt

SKIP ADVERTIsem*nT

Advertisem*nt

SKIP ADVERTIsem*nT

Advertisem*nt

SKIP ADVERTIsem*nT

Advertisem*nt

SKIP ADVERTIsem*nT

Advertisem*nt

SKIP ADVERTIsem*nT

Advertisem*nt

SKIP ADVERTIsem*nT

Advertisem*nt

SKIP ADVERTIsem*nT