In his “Big Boy” press conference on Thursday, President Biden only took questions from a pre-selected list friendly reporters. There were to be no questions taken, for example, from Peter Doocy, senior White House correspondent for FOX News.
In answer to a question about whether Vice President Kamala Harris is prepared to step in as president should he not be able to continued, Biden answered by calling her “Vice President Trump.”
“I wouldn’t have picked Vice President Trump to be vice president, though I think she’s not qualified to be president,” he responded.
Trump campaign Alaska Chair Kelly Tshibaka said it was one flub after another.
“This press conference showed us more confusion we’ve come to expect from President Biden. In the span of two hours, Biden called Ukraine’s President Zelenskyy ‘Putin,’ called Kamala Harris ‘Vice President Trump,’ and said he’s following the advice of his ‘Commander In Chief.’ He showed determination to stay in the race while noting that the polls show he’s doing well, and then immediately saying nobody believes the polls. He also stated that none of his advisors have told him he can’t win the presidential election,” Tshibaka observed.
Nick Begich, a candidate for Congress for Alaska, said, “Biden hasn’t been holding many press conferences in his 3 long years. Tonight he reminded the nation why.”
Prior to the press conference, Biden wound up the NATO summit by publicly introducing the president of Ukraine “President Putin,” before correcting himself.
Toward the end of the press conference, Biden said that his campaign wanted him to get in front of people in a more unscripted way. That he did, although he said at the beginning of the press conference that his staff had given him the list of reporters he would call on.
“I’m determined on running but I think it’s important that I allay fears by letting them see me out there,” he said, adding that there is a perception that the 81-year-old Biden is not prepared to sit with reporters without it being highly controlled.
“We’re going out in areas where we think we can win, where we can persuade people to move our way,” he said.
One of the unscripted things that Biden said is that if he is reelected he will institute national rent control, so that landlords are limited to raising rents no more than 5% per year. He excoriated corporations for making profits and said he will ensure their profits are driven down. He also said he had driven down inflation. He blasted Donald Trump, saying he would not be able to end the war between Ukraine and Russia — a war that started while Biden was in his second year of the presidency.
Answering a question about whether delegates to the Democratic National Convention would be released from their pledge to him and allowed to vote their conscience, he responded: “Obviously they’re free to do whatever they want. But I got overwhelming support, overwhelming support. I won — I forget how many votes I won in the primary, but [it was] overwhelming. And so tomorrow, if all of the sudden I show up at the convention and everybody says we want somebody else, that’s the democratic process.” Then in a forced whisper, he said: “It’s not gonna happen.”
The press conference had been delayed by over 90 minutes, possibly owing to the fact that Biden was finishing up the NATO summit with world leaders.
“He started off rough and he’s still having rough patches…but this is good enough to keep him in the race. Which is terrible news for Democrats and excellent news for Trump,” commented Ben Shapiro.
