Days after the president Joe Biden said that only the “Lord Almighty” could kick him out of the race, he presented a much more earthly scenario in his closely watched press conference Thursday night: His advisors would have to prove to him that he was walking to certain defeat.
But leaning into the microphone and whispering to dramatize his challenge, Biden made it clear he didn’t see it coming.
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“No one is saying that,” he said. “No research says that.”
He seemed to open the door to an alternative and then quickly close it. Of course, “other people can win trump”, he said, but it would be very difficult to “start from scratch”.
The president’s first press conference since the debate resulted in a competent presentation, if not a convincing performance. But the question remained whether that would be enough to stem the hemorrhage of Democratic support that threatened to bleed. Minutes after he left the stage, the trickle of Democratic members of Congress calling for him to step aside continued unabated.
“I believe I am the most qualified to govern,” said Biden, who for decades singled out opponents to fuel his own comeback narratives. “And I think I’m the most qualified to win.”
The high-stakes, largely impromptu hour — Biden’s longest since the debate that sent his candidacy into crisis — came as some of those around him talked about how to persuade him to drop out, and as his campaign commissioned a poll to test Vice President Kamala Harris’ strength in a showdown he insisted would never happen.
On Thursday, Biden at times expressed his growing frustration with those who are paid to help him, blaming staffers directly for his overloaded schedule and indirectly for some of the recent reporting on his candidacy.
As Biden finished his first solo press conference this year, Republicans seemed more satisfied with his steady performance — hoping a wounded Biden would move on — than Democrats. Many in the party now fear that every impromptu Biden appearance between now and November will be a hold-your-breath moment.
“We don’t have a problem with the Democratic Party, we have a problem with Joe Biden,” said Pete Giangreco, a former campaign adviser to President Barack Obama who worries about Biden’s ability to deliver a message against former President Donald Trump. “He can’t deliver the medicine to cure the disease because it will always be about what’s wrong with him.”
David Polyansky, a Republican strategist who has worked on previous presidential campaigns, including that of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis last year, described Democrats as “stuck in the mud.”
“They have a sitting president who is no longer capable of getting reelected or even proving to the public that he can do the job effectively,” he said, “but apparently not bad enough for the powerful Democrats to recall him.”
Some Democrats had hoped that former Speaker Nancy Pelosi — who clearly suggested that Biden had a decision to make just days after he said he had decided — would take the lead, like a fellow octogenarian who yielded gracefully and in her own time to the next generation of leaders.
Biden was quick to dismiss the rumor consuming his party that it had diminished over time. When a reporter suggested that he had recognized his limits at age 81, he responded with disbelief: “The limits I recognized that I have?”
However, even ignoring the report about his need to sleep earlier, he confirmed that he needed more rest. “It would be smarter for me to pick up the pace a little more,” he said of a job that rarely offers much rest.
He tried to turn his seniority into an advantage with the kind of prepared line that allies expected him to deliver in the debate.
“The only thing age does is help you — it creates a little wisdom if you pay attention,” Biden said.
The post-debate problem is how much everyone is paying attention, magnifying every murmur and error.
And the press conference was far from perfect. Biden got the first answer wrong, referring to “Vice President Trump” instead of Vice President Kamala Harris. He cut himself more than once. “Look guys, this is… well, anyway,” he said.
But he also stood his ground, comfortably tackling the complexities of foreign affairs – the conflict in the Gaza Strip, as well as the relationship between China and Russia – without the screeching halts that defined his debate performance two weeks earlier. It was a level of fluency that, at the very least, complicated the case for removing a sitting president who still wants to run.
Biden was proud and even a little defensive about his achievements. Days after he denounced the “elites” who lined up against him, Biden cited the elites, including Nobel laureates, who praised him. “Find me an economist, a traditional economist, who says we haven’t done well,” he said.
“How can I say this without sounding too selfish?” Biden wondered aloud at another point.
He had barely finished speaking when the desertions began again.
Rep. Jim Himes of Connecticut, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, became the latest lawmaker to call for Biden to resign. “We must present the strongest candidate,” he said.
He soon joined Reps. Scott Peters of California and Eric Sorensen of Illinois, who became the 18th Democrat in Congress to call on Biden to drop out of the race.
Biden, at the press conference, and his campaign in a memo Thursday, argued it was time to move past the debate and unite in support. They indicated little change in strategy, arguing that the race could still be a referendum on Trump and what the former president might do if he wins a second term.
“The surest way to help Donald Trump is to spend the convention talking about our nominating process rather than the MAGA extremism that will be on stage in Milwaukee,” said the memo, which was signed by campaign chair Jennifer O’Malley Dillon , and campaign manager Julie Chavez Rodriguez.
The press conference resulted in a bizarre, bipartisan symmetry on social media, where Republicans and White House aides celebrated Biden’s performance — albeit for entirely different reasons.
“Joe Biden is killing it. Build Better,” wrote Richard Grenell, a Trump loyalist who hopes to become secretary of state, in a post laced with sarcasm.
“Tonight President Biden was knowledgeable, engaging and capable,” posted Senator Chris Coons, a confidant of the president from his home state of Delaware. “No one is more prepared to lead our nation than Joe Biden.”
Democrats have demanded that Biden do more to reassure the public — about three-quarters of whom consider him too old to do the job effectively — and his next test is set for Monday in an interview with NBC’s Lester Holt News, which will coincide with the first night of the Republican National Convention.
Biden’s last three words on Thursday revealed a lot about the state of a race that has been overwhelmingly fixated on him over the past two weeks. They were a call to start focusing on your opponent.
“Listen to him,” Biden said of Trump.
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