WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden is holding a news conference Thursday evening, the key event in a monumental week for his campaign as he fends off calls for him to step aside as the party’s presumptive nominee. His big moment comes on the last day of the NATO summit.
After a dismal debate performance, Biden’s candidacy is still under question. The first Senate Democrat, Peter Welch of Vermont, and over a dozen House Democrats have publicly called for Biden to end his campaign.
One of the staunchest supporters in the president’s corner has been his wife Jill Biden. As she tries to help her husband salvage his campaign she’s also coming under new scrutiny from critics who’ve cast her as a power-hungry wife pushing her 81-year-old husband to run again.
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Biden responds defensively to reporter asking about the drama over his political fate
Asked whether the focus on his flubs and the pressure to drop out of the race has become damaging for the United States, Biden pushed back on the question.
“Have you seen a more successful conference?” he asked. “What do you think?”
Biden did not address the question, but he asserted that the just-concluded NATO summit was “the most successful conference I attended in a long time.”
Biden insists he’s not in presidential race ‘for my legacy,’ says he’s running to ‘complete the job I started’
Biden was asked how it might hurt his place in the history books if he were to keep running and lose to Trump in November — but insisted he’s not concerned. Instead, he said, his focus is continuing four more years of policies to grow the economy and help the middle class.
“I’m not in this for my legacy,” Biden said. “I’m in this to complete the job I started.”
Biden’s first question is on shrinking support from many fellow Democrats
The first question of Biden’s press conference was about him losing support among many of his fellow Democrats and key unions, and about Vice President Kamala Harris possibly replacing him on the ticket.
Biden was at first defiant, saying the “UAW endorsed me, but go ahead,” meaning the United Autoworkers.
But then he flubbed the answer, mixing up Harris and Trump: “I wouldn’t have picked Vice President Trump to be vice president if she wasn’t qualified.”
Biden blasts Trump in news conference, says presumptive GOP opponent has ‘no commitment to NATO’
President Joe Biden opened his news conference by talking about NATO and security for Ukraine. He then shifted to discussing inflation and border security in the U.S., as well as negotiations for a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas.
He then began taking reporters’ questions.
Biden opens highly anticipated news conference
Biden is opening a highly anticipated news conference with a statement on the just-concluded 75TH anniversary NATO summit he hosted in Washington.
He’ll start taking reporters’ questions after that.
UK prime minister wants to talk substance, not Biden flub
New British Prime Minister Keir Starmer declined to directly answer repeated questions about Biden’s brief verbal flub referring to Zelenskyy as “President Putin.”
Instead Starmer praised Biden for his leadership and his preparation in putting the event together and securing solid outcomes for Ukraine.
“I want to look at the substance of what’s been achieved over these two days,” said Starmer, who is making his debut on the international stage.
He said he spent several hours with the president in a private meeting and a dinner but would not offer an opinion on Biden’s capabilities.
“We’ve reached a declaration, which has been signed off (on),” Starmer said. “It was good but also one that President Biden deserves credit for.”
France’s Macron says Biden ‘very much on top of things’
When asked about Biden referring to Zelenskyy as Putin, French President Emmanuel Macron said he would not comment on U.S. politics but anyone can have a slip of the tongue.
“We can all have a slip of the tongue. It’s happened to me,” Macron told reporters, speaking through an interpreter.
Macron said he had a long discussion with Biden during Wednesday’s dinner and heard his discussions in summit meetings. He described Biden as “very much on top of things.”
“He knows the issues and around the table he is amongst those who has the greatest depth of knowledge on these international issues,” said Macron.
Democratic governors gather to watch Biden face the press
As Biden prepares for his high-stakes news conference in Washington, the National Governors Association is meeting for its conference in Salt Lake City.
The nine Democratic governors present for the event filed into a private room to watch a livestream with their staffs and other Democratic officials.
Reporters were not invited in.
Biden news conference pushed back
The timing of the news conference President Joe Biden is set to hold Thursday has been changed from 6:30 p.m. EDT to no earlier than 7 p.m., and it could be held later than that due to events at the NATO summit.
More NATO allies hitting defense spending goals
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg gave the United States — and Donald Trump in particular — some of the credit Thursday for a record number of NATO countries hitting their agreed-to spending goals for military spending.
But while Trump has been the most prominent critic of fellow NATO allies that don’t meet those goals, it was Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine that really spurred defense spending in Europe. NATO expects 23 of the 32 countries to spend at least 2% of their gross domestic product on defense this year.
That number was just six countries in 2021, before Russia’s invasion.
“The clear message from the United States has had an impact. European allies are really stepping up,” Stoltenberg said.
American leaders, including Biden, have long had the same complaint. Trump has hit the point harder and more often.
Biden accidentally refers to Ukrainian leader as ‘President Putin’
President Joe Biden was winding down his remarks at an event on the sidelines of the NATO summit with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and other leaders on Thursday when he made an untimely verbal flub: He referred to the Ukrainian leader 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.
The room, and Zelenskyy, gasped at Biden’s gaffe, which the U.S. president quickly sought to clean up.
“President Putin? You’re going to beat President Putin,” Biden said to Zelenskyy at the event to mark the unveiling of an agreement called the Ukraine Compact. “I’m so focused on beating Putin; we got to worry about it,” Biden explained.
Zelenskyy joked: “I’m better” than Putin.
Biden agreed. “You’re a hell of a lot better.”
Trump lawyers press judge to overturn hush money conviction after Supreme Court immunity ruling
Donald Trump’s lawyers are urging the judge in his New York hush money case to overturn his conviction and dismiss the case in the wake of the Supreme Court’s recent ruling on presidential immunity.
The former president’s lawyers wrote in papers made public Thursday that prosecutors rushed to try Trump in April and May while the high court was still considering his immunity claims.
“Rather than wait for the Supreme Court’s guidance, the prosecutors scoffed with hubris at President Trump’s immunity motions and insisted on rushing to trial,” Trump’s lawyers Todd Blanche and Emil Bove wrote. “Your Honor now has the authority to address these injustices, and the court is duty-bound to do so in light of the Supreme Court’s decision.”
Trump was originally scheduled to be sentenced Thursday, but that’s on hold until the trial judge, Juan M. Merchan, rules on whether to set aside Trump’s felony conviction for falsifying records to cover up a potential sex scandal.
Merchan has said he’ll rule on the defense’s request on Sept. 6 and will sentence Trump on Sept. 18, “if such is still necessary.” Prosecutors have until July 24 to respond to the defense’s arguments.
Hawaii congressman joins list of Democrats asking Biden to step aside
The number of Democratic members of Congress calling for Biden to drop out of the presidential race is continuing to grow, with U.S. Rep. Ed Case of Hawaii adding his name to the list.
Case said in a statement late Thursday afternoon that it’s unclear whether Biden can perform “the most difficult job in the world” for another four years.
Case acknowledged that replacing him would be “difficult and uncertain” but he did not believe continuing with Biden would be the “best path forward for our country.”
More than a dozen House Democrats have publicly called for Biden to step aside.
A Wisconsin-based talk-radio network agreed to remove portions of its interview with Biden
Civic Media, the Wisconsin-based talk-radio network, said it agreed to the Biden campaign’s request to make two edits to its interview with the president ahead of broadcast.
The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reported Thursday that Civic Media said its decision to make the tweaks fell short of “journalistic interview standards.”
Civic Media’s Earl Ingram was one of two Black radio hosts who said last week that he had been given questions by the Biden campaign ahead of speaking with the president. Ingram told The Associated Press that there was “no back and forth” over the four questions he was provided.
The Biden campaign did not immediately return a message seeking comment. The campaign said it plans to refrain from offering suggested questions to hosts, according to a person familiar with the candidate’s interview booking process but not permitted to speak publicly about its operations.
Per the station, the campaign asked to remove a portion where Biden referenced having “more Blacks in my administration than any other president” and a reference to the Central Park Five case, the group of teenagers wrongly convicted of raping a white jogger in a brutal attack more than three decades ago.
2nd Arizona representative calls on Biden to step aside
Rep Greg Stanton of Arizona became the latest member of Congress to call on Biden to step out of the presidential race, a list that now numbers over a dozen.
Stanton said he was one of Biden’s earliest supporters in 2020 but that it is now time for the president to “pass the torch” to new leaders. He said in a statement that Trump poses an “existential threat to the Constitution and the rule of law,” and the Democrats need a candidate who can effectively make the case against him.
A former mayor of Phoenix, Stanton represents a Democratic-leaning suburban district that includes many of the state’s most competitive precincts, where ticket-splitting voters helped fuel Democratic gains in the emerging swing state while backing moderate Republicans who have distinguished themselves from Trump.
Stanton is the second representative from the swing state of Arizona to ask Biden to step down from the top of the ticket.
Rep. Brad Schneider becomes the 11th House Democrat to ask Biden to step down
The Democrat from Illinois is the latest member of the House Democratic caucus to ask for President Biden to step down as the nominee for president. Schneider, who has defended the president’s record in recent days, says in a statement that he was proud to support Biden’s campaign in 2020 but that now is the time for him to “secure his legacy and boldly deliver the nation to a new generation of leadership.”
“In passing the torch now, President Biden has a chance to live up to this standard and seal his place in history as one of the greatest leaders our nation, and history, has ever known,” the statement continued. “I fear if he fails to make the right choice, our democracy will hang in the balance.”
