President Joe Biden laughed off claims he needs more sleep and said his wife Jill is “totally destroying” him for working too much. But during the most important news conference of his career, he vowed not to quit the presidential race.
The president answered questions for nearly an hour on Thursday night in an attempt to assuage Democrats’ fears that he cannot defeat Donald Trump in November and that he is not mentally capable of doing so.
There were some glaring mistakes and Biden sounded hoarse and mumbled at times, but he made it clear that he is in the race to remain.
It’s unclear whether he has calmed the storm of concern in his party, where at least a dozen Democrats have publicly called for him to resign. There were good moments and bad.
President Joe Biden held a nearly hour-long press conference on Thursday evening
He got off to a bad start when he made a huge mistake: he called his Vice President Kamala Harris “Vice President Trump.”
But despite the blunders, it’s clear that he’s determined.
Biden attempted to mock what he called a “dumb mistake” during the first presidential debate and noted that he had no plans to travel through “15 time zones” for the next debate.
Two weeks before the debate, he had visited France, Italy and California in succession.
He even lashed out at his staff for filling his schedule so full, saying they were getting him into trouble with the first lady.
“I love my staff, but they add things. They add things all the time. I’m tested by my wife,” Biden said.
And he pushed back against a report that he told Democratic governors after his disastrous debate that he would limit events after 8 p.m.
“That’s not true,” he said, laughing. “Look, what I said was that it would be smarter if I took it easy, instead of starting every day at 7 o’clock in the evening and going to bed at midnight,” Biden said.
He said it would be better, for example, to move a fundraiser forward an hour. “Start at 8 o’clock, then people can go home at 10 o’clock,” Biden said.
There are reports that Jill Biden is one of the few people who could convince Joe Biden to withdraw from the race.
But Biden said Thursday night The only way he will leave is if his staff “come to me and say there is no way they can win.”
And that is exactly what some of his closest associates are doing.
They are considering how to tell him he cannot beat Donald Trump in November and should drop out of the race.
Other advisers agree that his chances of winning are slim to none and that the likelihood is increasing that he will beat the Democratic candidates as well.
“He needs to get out,” a Biden campaign aide said NBC News“He’ll never get over this.”
To convince him, aides told The New York Times they would have to convince Biden directly that he cannot beat Trump and convince him that another candidate, such as Vice President Kamala Harris, can.
They must also reassure him that if he were to step down, the process of choosing another candidate would be orderly and not descend into chaos.
The White House rejects the report’s claims. “This is absolutely not true,” White House spokesman Andrew Bates said.
Other top advisers support the president.
“I’m not worried. He said he had a bad night,” National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters Thursday when asked about the president’s performance during the debate.
His White House staff have not yet approached him about an exit plan, but they are taking steps to ensure they have all the necessary information.
The campaign is quietly testing a head-to-head confrontation between Harris and Trump, the Times reported.
The campaign is conducting a poll to see how the results pan out. The data could allow them to show Biden that Harris is a strong candidate or confirm his belief that he is.
Biden remains unconvinced that any Democrat other than himself can beat Trump.
Jill Biden is said to be one of the few people who could persuade Biden to withdraw from the race
At the end of his press conference, Biden answered a question about whether his convention delegates are “free to vote according to their conscience” if they have any doubts about that. He acknowledged, however, that he had to continue to prove himself.
“Of course they are free to do whatever they want. But I have overwhelming support” in the primaries, he said.
“If they suddenly show up at Congress tomorrow, everyone will say, ‘We want someone else.’ That’s the democratic process.”
Then he lowered his voice to a whisper for emphasis. “That’s not going to happen.”