President Joe Biden faced more calls from fellow Democrats to abandon his re-election bid on Friday, following a news conference in which he delivered nuanced responses but occasionally stumbled over his words.
It was unclear whether Mr. Biden’s performance would convince doubters in his party that he is their best bet to defeat Republican Donald Trump in the November 5 election and serve another four-year term in the White House.
At least 17 congressional Democrats so far have called for him to drop out and allow the party to pick another standard-bearer, including some who announced their positions after the news conference on Thursday night.
Democrats are worried that Mr. Biden’s low public approval ratings and growing concerns that he is too old for the job could cause them to lose seats in the House and Senate, leaving them with no grip on power in Washington should Mr. Trump win the White House.
“If I show up at the convention and everybody says they want someone else, that’s the democratic process,” Mr. Biden said, before shifting to the stage whisper he often uses for emphasis to add, “It’s not gonna happen.”
Biden’s gaffes
At one point, he referred to his Vice President, Kamala Harris, as “Vice President Trump”. That came just hours after he introduced Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as “President Putin” at the NATO summit, drawing gasps from those in the room.
Mr. Biden occasionally garbled his responses at the news conference, yet he also delivered detailed assessments of global issues, including Ukraine’s war with Russia and the Israel-Gaza conflict.
Some Democrats were not reassured. “We must put forward the strongest candidate possible to confront the threat posed by Trump’s promised MAGA authoritarianism. I no longer believe that is Joe Biden,” said Representative Jim Himes of Connecticut, who called on the President to end his campaign after the news conference.
A senior campaign official who spoke on condition of anonymity called the performance the “worst of all worlds.”
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