The Biden Speech
As many eyes as are still interested in American politics were on Joe Biden tonight as he held his first proper press conference of 2024 (his last was in November 2023). Two weeks after his disastrous debate with Donald Trump, and after numerous elected Democrats (including US senators and congressmen) have asked for him to end his re-election campaign.
Biden has spent most of these two weeks gradually transforming into Donald Trump. His first appearances after the debate were mostly on radio shows in which the stations were given a list of questions ahead of time to ask the president (these radio events were also taped and edited). On Monday he called into his favorite morning news show, and bragged about the size of crowds coming to his events.
Biden spent this week at the 75th Anniversary of NATO summit, Biden gave an okay speech but nothing special. On Thursday, the last day of the conference, he introduced Ukrainian president Volodymer Zelensky as President Putin. When Biden finally began to take questions he pulled out a sheet of paper and called on reporters one at a time. While this is not a new strategy it is horrific optics. He took about 10 questions (from 8 reporters) and spoke for under an hour (remember no events after 8PM). Questions were mostly about either the concern about his cognitive abilities or foreign policy.
When asked about Vice-President Kamala Harris he referred to her as “Vice-President Trump”. Throughout the short question and answer session Biden bragged about being in terms of legislation “the greatest president since at least Lyndon Johnson”. Biden then proceeded to relay anecdotes where world leaders tell him he’s the only president that can keep NATO together and continue the war in Ukraine. He then lied about doing “20 major campaign events” over the past two weeks (by no metric is this true). When asked about his re-election campaign when defending his chances of beating Trump he began to say “just look at the polling” but then stopped and a few sentences later said that he didn’t “believe the polls”. Maybe next time Biden will remember he can just say “fake news”.
Biden will present this press conference as a victory and some pundits (propagandists) are already doing so. Describing his “complex” and “nuanced” answers to foreign policy questions (his answers were filled with vague statements and abrupt endings). Biden’s debate performance set the bar so low that if he did basically anything besides actually die on stage it could be a win. That low bar might be good for Joe Biden but it is a disaster for American democracy. If the bar to become president becomes having a pulse, we have much more to fear than Donald Trump.
