Biden confuses Zelensky with Putin, Harris with Trump but insists he’s staying in US presidential race

WASHINGTON – US President Joe Biden mixed up the names of US Vice-President Kamala Harris, and his Republican rival Donald Trump on July 11 but insisted he was pushing ahead with his re-election bid even as more of his fellow Democrats urged him to end his campaign.

Mr Biden, 81, touted his decades of experience on the world stage as he argued that he was uniquely qualified to defeat former US president Trump, 78, and lead the US for another four-year term.

“The only thing age does is it creates a little bit of wisdom if you pay attention,” said Mr Biden, who is already the oldest person to ever serve as US president.

Since

his poor performance against Trump in a presidential debate

two weeks ago, Mr Biden has faced growing doubts from donors, supporters and fellow Democrats about his ability to win the Nov 5 election and keep up with the demands of the job.

He probably did not help his case when he mixed up his vice-president and his Republican rival at the outset of the news conference, which lasted nearly an hour.

“Look, I wouldn’t have picked Vice-President Trump to be vice-president if she was not qualified to be president. So start there,” Mr Biden said as he responded to a question from Reuters about his confidence in Ms Harris.

The US President coughed frequently and occasionally garbled his responses at the outset of the news conference, and towards the end, his answers frequently trailed off before he had completed his thoughts.

At the same time, he delivered detailed responses on issues such as

the Israel-Gaza conflict

and the need for Western countries to produce more military weaponry to counter Russia and China.

In an immediate response, Trump mocked Mr Biden.

“Crooked Joe begins his ‘Big Boy’ Press Conference with, ‘I wouldn’t have picked Vice-President Trump to be vice-president... Great job, Joe!” Trump said on his Truth Social site.

A few hours earlier, Mr Biden mistakenly referred to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky as “President Putin”.

“And now, I want to hand it over to the President of Ukraine, who has as much courage as he has determination, ladies and gentlemen, President Putin,” Mr Biden said at the Nato summit in Washington, drawing gasps from those in the room.

While correcting himself about two seconds later, Mr Biden added: “President Putin, you’re going to beat President Putin, President Zelensky. I am so focused on beating Putin.”

Mr Zelensky responded to Mr Biden’s comments by saying: “I am better (than Putin).”

Mr Biden replied, “You are a hell of a lot better”, as some in the room laughed, before Mr Zelensky began his own address.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz defended Mr Biden on July 11 after the US President’s mistake with Mr Zelensky.

Mr Scholz said: “Slips of tongue happen, and if you always monitor everyone, you will find enough of them.”

Mr Biden’s campaign has been on the ropes for two weeks, since his poor debate performance against Trump.

At least 16 of the 213 Democrats in the House and one of the Senate’s 51 Democrats have appealed publicly to the US President to withdraw from the race.

Representative Jim Himes of Connecticut joined that group shortly after the press conference ended.

“We must put forth the strongest candidate possible to confront the threat posed by Trump’s promised Maga authoritarianism,” he said. “I no longer believe that is Joe Biden.”

Mr Biden overcame a childhood stutter, and has frequently mangled names and misspoke throughout his political career.

Mr Biden said his health is in good shape and that he would take another neurological exam to determine his mental acuity if his doctors recommended it.

Slip-ups

A White House official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Reuters they did not know whether the news conference would shore up support on Capitol Hill.

A Biden donor, Mr John Morgan, said his performance was “fantastic”. However, another donor, likewise speaking on condition of anonymity, did not think it would help, given the heightened scrutiny of Mr Biden’s verbal slip-ups.

Mr Biden said he needed to “pace” himself a little more and complained that his aides sometimes overscheduled him. “I’m catching hell from my wife,” he said.

Separately on July 11, United Auto Workers union officials met to discuss their concerns with his candidacy, three sources familiar with the matter said, after endorsing Mr Biden in January.

The 400,000-member union has a big presence in industrial states like Michigan that Mr Biden will need to carry to win re-election.

No Democratic leaders in Congress have called for Mr Biden to end his candidacy, though former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi

on July 10 declined to say he should stay in the race.

The campaign has commissioned a survey to test how US Vice-President Kamala Harris would fare if she were to replace Mr Biden at the top of the ticket, according to a source with knowledge of the matter.

A Reuters/Ipsos poll released last week found Ms Harris would fare no better than Mr Biden if she were the Democratic nominee, as both were statistically tied with Trump.

Prominent donors like actor George Clooney have called on Mr Biden to drop out, and there were signs that concerns are growing within Mr Biden’s campaign operation as well.

The New York Times reported that some longtime advisers were considering ways to convince him to drop his re-election bid, while NBC News reported that some campaign staffers thought he stood no chance of winning the election.

A Reuters/Ipsos poll released last week found Mr Biden and Trump tied at 40 per cent each.

Other opinion polls have found Trump widening his lead over Mr Biden, and some strategists have warned that Trump stood a chance of winning reliably Democratic states like New Hampshire and Minnesota.

In their strategy memo, the campaign argued that it has always expected a close election and could win by focusing on three battleground states: Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin.

If he won those states, along with others considered to be reliably Democratic, he would win 270 electoral votes – the bare minimum needed to secure the presidency. Mr Biden won 306 electoral votes in 2020.

The campaign characterised other battleground states he won in 2020 as “not out of reach”. REUTERS