Joe Biden delivered an hourlong press conference on Thursday, taking questions from reporters as he tried to underscore concerns about his mental acuity and age less than three months before the November presidential election.
Biden said during the one hour-long solo press conference, “I’m determined on running.”
Billed by the media and echoed across the White House as Biden’s “big boy press conference” due to recent concerns over his mental acuity and fitness to run for reelection.
The press conference follows Biden hosting NATO leaders in Washington, D.C., for the 75th anniversary of NATO.
“Am I getting the job done? Can you name me somebody who’s got more major pieces of legislation passed in three and a half years? I created 2,000 jobs just last week. So if I slow down, I can’t get the job done,” Biden told the media of him remaining in the race. “That’s a sign that I shouldn’t be doing it. But there’s no indication of that yet. None.”
Throughout the press conference, Biden had a few missteps, like confusing Vice President Kamala Harris for former president Donald Trump and dismissing his teleprompter.
“Look, I wouldn’t have picked Vice President Trump to be vice president [if I thought] she’s not qualified to be president,” Biden said, not appearing to catch his mistake.
Conservatives bashed the press conference as “another disaster,” while some Democrats and White House supporters praised it as a “very strong performance.”
Meanwhile, as with many of his detractors on the right, conservatives mostly bemoaned Biden dumb word gaffes.
Biden also addressed the question on Harris’ readiness for the Presidency even when pressed on why he would not turn over his duties to her.
“First of all, the way she’s handled the issue of freedom of women’s bodies to have control over their bodies. Secondly, her ability to handle almost any issue on the board. This was a hell of a prosecutor. She was a first-rate person, and in the Senate, she was really good,” Biden said.
“I wouldn’t have picked her unless I thought she was qualified to be president. From the very beginning. I made no bones about that. She is qualified to be president. That’s why I picked her,” Biden said.
Biden’s press conference came after another gaffe earlier in the day when he mistook Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The debate — Biden’s first one-on-one match up with Trump of the election cycle after more than a dozen Democratic debates were held over several months earlier this year in which he faced off heads-up against numerous other Democrats running for president — did not slow down his critics at all either.
Some leading voices within the party are still telling him to quit the presidential race altogether, raising questions about things like health and mental fitness that had not yet come into play until most recently. But Biden has rebuffed those calls, pledging to stay in the race as his campaign and White House push him out into public settings so he can address fears about whether or not he is up for a four-year term.
