Despite mounting pressure from within his own party, US President Joe Biden ruled out any possibility of giving up his seat in the race for the White House on Thursday during a highly anticipated press conference on the sidelines of the NATO summit in Washington.
Taking part in the debate for the first time since his disastrous performance in the first presidential debate, in which he appeared disoriented and tired, President Biden rejected the idea of abandoning the Democratic ship in the middle of the campaign.
“I believe I am the most qualified person to be president. I beat him once and I will beat him again,” he said of his opponent Donald Trump.
The Democratic president had the triple challenge of answering questions from journalists, he who has often blundered in front of the press, of dispelling doubts raised about his cognitive abilities and of silencing the growing grumbling that is being heard within his own party.
Appearing in good shape despite some noticeable coughing, he made every effort during the 50 minutes of the conference to reassure people about his state of health and his ability to lead.
“I am determined to be a candidate, but I think it is important to allay fears about my candidacy,” he told the audience of journalists from around the world.
“I’m fine. I’m tested every day on my neurological abilities,” he added.
However, numerous slips of the tongue and some evasive answers undermined his efforts.
Even before the press conference began, the 81-year-old made another gaffe when he called Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky “Mr Putin” during a speech at the NATO summit, before correcting himself.
In front of reporters, he also referred to “Vice President Trump” instead of naming his running mate, Kamala Harris, and said she had all the skills to be president.
Asked about his political future and calls for him to quit the race, he repeatedly said he had “still a lot of work to do” and appeared determined to continue the presidential campaign.
“I’m not in the race to preserve my (political) legacy. I’m in it to finish the job I started,” he said.
Presenting himself as a bulwark against Donald Trump, he described the Republican’s possible re-election as a possible “disaster.”
A campaign under pressure
The problems with Joe Biden’s campaign have been piling up since the presidential debate on June 27. Visibly tired, sometimes disoriented and searching for words, the president looked very bad when faced with the responses of Republican candidate Donald Trump.
The next day, the influential New York Timesusually a Democratic supporter, threw the first stone with an editorial asking Mr. Biden to simply abandon the race for the White House.
Calls to withdraw have been increasing since then.
Actor and director George Clooney, a longtime Democratic supporter and donor, added his voice to the criticism in an open letter published Monday in the New York Timesin which he recounts his meeting with the octogenarian during a fundraising evening that he hosted last June.
“It’s a terrible thing to say, but the Joe Biden I was with three weeks ago is not the (…) Joe Biden of 2010. Or even the Joe Biden of 2020. He was the same man we saw in the debate,” Clooney wrote, raising doubts about the outgoing president’s ability to hold office.
Other donors from the media sphere, including Netflix co-founder Reed Hastings, author Stephen King and producer and heiress Abigail Disney, have made similar pleas in recent days.
The revolt is also being organized within the Democratic Party.
In Congress, a dozen elected members of the House of Representatives, whose seats are also at stake in the November 5 elections, have already called on Joe Biden to drop his candidacy.
On the Senate side, Peter Welch of Vermont was the first to directly call on the president to “withdraw from the race” for the White House, “for the good of the country,” in a text published in the pages of Washington Post.
“Among elected Democrats, we are very, very worried,” says Frédérick Gagnon, director of the Raoul-Dandurand Chair’s Observatory on the United States. “We have the impression that Biden’s candidacy could harm the Democrats’ chances in the other elections held on November 5, for the positions of representatives and senators and in the state legislatures.”
To avoid a collapse of the Democratic vote and a Republican tidal wave, the White House seems to be “stepping on the accelerator” and increasing the number of appearances by President Biden, despite the risk of slippage. He will also participate in a rally on Friday in Detroit, Michigan.
The Biden camp is also working behind the scenes to silence dissenting voices within the Democratic Party.
“Biden and his advisors are making numerous calls and meetings with mayors, governors and members of Congress (to ensure their support),” says Frédérick Gagnon. “But this requires a lot of energy, resources and time and makes running Biden’s election campaign even more perilous and complex.”
Unprecedented situation
Joe Biden is not the first American president running for re-election to face challenges from his own camp. In 1968, in the midst of the Vietnam War, Lyndon B. Johnson suffered a major revolt from the pacifist fringe of the Democratic Party, before choosing not to run for a second term. In 1980, Jimmy Carter, also a Democrat, was also challenged and had to campaign in the primaries against Senator Ted Kennedy.
What makes the current situation unprecedented is that it is occurring “very late in the electoral process,” explains Frédérick Gagnon.
The Democratic National Convention, which is to formalize the party’s presidential nomination, will take place in Chicago in just a month, from August 19 to 22. The terms of how another candidate will be selected are also unclear, since President Biden won the Democratic primary unopposed.
” THE timing is particular and makes what happens next unpredictable. If we want to turn around, we have to do it extremely quickly. It’s all well and good to say that Biden is no longer working and that we want to move on, but we don’t have much time on the Democrat side to think about possible scenarios and choose the best candidate to beat Trump,” the political scientist sums up.
With Agence France-Presse
