Biden's "Big Boy" Press Conference

Yesterday was not a very good day for President Biden. On the same day, he committed two embarrassing name gaffes. First, he introduced Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskii to his NATO audience as “President Putin”. In the evening, he held his widely-anticipated press conference, dubbed the “big boy” press conference by White House press spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre. It came in the evening after Biden wrapped up hosting the NATO summit. Another screwup by his schedulers? I don’t know, but in my opinion, Biden’s performance was not impressive though certainly not as bad as his performance in the debate against former President Trump. His opening remarks about the NATO summit were read from a teleprompter, but, of course, it could not be used for the Q and A.  Once again, he got names wrong as he referred to Vice President Kamala Harris as “Vice President Trump”. There were other gaffes too, but in addition, Biden had trouble reading the names of the reporters he was supposed to call on for questions.

As I normally do, I switched back and forth between Fox, CNN, and MSNBC to compare and contrast the reactions of the various talking heads. To me, the biggest difference (what set Fox off from the other two) was that CNN and MSNBC, while expressing concern about Biden’s ability to go forward, were more sympathetic to him as a person, and as a president, while stressing the importance of defeating the evil Trump in November, etc. Fox was less forgiving of Biden, both as a person and as president. As is usually the case, both Fox and CNN had a few commentators from opposing camps; Fox had a few Democrats, while CNN had a few Republicans, but, of course, they were in the minority in each. 

If there was a “consensus” among commentators of all three networks, it was that Biden’s performance was just good enough to buy him a little more time, but that the calls for him to drop out would continue. That is faint praise, indeed.

One other difference is that Fox is reporting rumors that former President Barack Obama is quietly supporting efforts by Democrats to get Biden out of the race. Some are speculating that one reason Biden is holding on is that he is angry at Obama, whom he served loyally as vice president, and who is now “stabbing him in the back.” The other networks are reporting that Obama has “huddled” with former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi on the issue of whether Biden can go forward.

On Fox, I believe it was Washington Times journalist Charles Hurt, a conservative, who said before the presser that the Democrats’ worst nightmare was that Biden’s performance would fall in the middle and slow down the effort of getting him to drop out. As of right now, that seems to be the case, but at this point, everything could still change from one day to the next. 

As for Trump, I suspect he is putting off naming his vice president candidate until he has a better idea of what Biden will do. Previously, he stated that he would announce his pick before or during the upcoming Republic convention in Milwaukee next week. Now it appears he will announce the pick during the convention.

My personal opinion is that Biden’s days are still numbered. Yesterday, he showed nothing that could convince voters that he can still do the job, let alone for four more years. The Democrats are still in crisis mode, but the Republicans should not get too overconfident. Never underestimate the Democrats’ ability to pull the rabbit out of the hat.