During a major press conference Thursday, President Biden caught reporters off guard by mistakenly referring to Vice President Kamala Harris with the name of his predecessor, former president Donald Trump. This comes days after he had also confused Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelensky at another event.
“Look, I wouldn’t have picked Vice President Trump to be vice president if I think she’s not qualified to be president,” the 81-year-old said to gasps and groans from journalists at the annual NATO summit.
At an event his aides billed as a “big boy press conference” at Washington’s Convention Center, Biden spoke in a hoarse cadence that was often halting and unsteady.
The remarks were meant to slow Democratic calls for Biden to exit the race after he appeared muddled in a June 27 debate with Trump. Instead, the president proceeded to worsen worries by flubbing lines and questions and delivering unrestrained retorts that ignored what he had been asked about.
Trump, the 78-year-old presumptive Republican nominee, swiftly taunted his successor on social media.
“Crooked Joe begins his ‘Big Boy’ Press Conference with, ‘I wouldn’t have picked Vice President Trump to be vice president, though I think she was not qualified to be president.’ Great job, Joe!” the ex-president wrote.
In another sign of alarm, Biden forgot the correct title for Air Force Chief General C.Q. Brown who holds the military’s top job, calling him “commander in chief.”
The president also had difficulty pronouncing “neurologist” and attacked a reporter who asked whether he planned to take another cognitive exam unless doctors requested one, as some medical pundits have speculated that Trump may be suffering from Parkinson’s disease or something like it.
Biden claimed he had last seen his neurologist, Dr. Kevin Cannard, in February, though his press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said the visit was in January.
The president made several other factual errors as well, putting the population of China at under a billion people and confusing the country with Russia.
Additionally, Biden knocked down the national press reports that he’d told Democratic governors he wouldn’t do any events after 8 p.m. in order to “pace” himself better.
Since the debate, several Democratic voters have publicly raised alarm bells about Biden’s nomination and speculation has spread like wildfire over who would replace him.
“The campaign hasn’t really started, it hasn’t started in earnest yet,” the president said hopefully — at one point asking reporters: “How accurate does anyone think the polls are these days?”
On Joe Biden, Representative Jim Himes (D-C) has said, “we must put forth the strongest candidate possible to confront the threat posed by Trump’s promised authoritarianism” and “I no longer believe that is Joe Biden, and I hope that… he will continue to put our nation first.”
The polls show Biden sinking since the debate, especially as his fellow Democrats grow increasingly afraid of Trump sweeping them out with a landslide.
