America's Talking - Biden Refers to Harris as ‘VP Trump’ During Mistake-Filled NATO Presser

Episode Date: July 12, 2024

In his first news conference since his critically panned debate performance two weeks ago, President Joe Biden on Thursday made numerous mistakes while talking for about an hour on a range of policy issues. He answered questions from 10 hand-picked reporters focused mostly on his fitness for office, but included issues such as the conflicts in Israel and Ukraine. "I've been given a list of people to call on here," Biden said when the Q&A portion of his news conference began, later mistakenly referring to Vice President Kamala Harris as "Vice President Trump."Support this podcast: https://secure.anedot.com/franklin-news-foundation/ce052532-b1e4-41c4-945c-d7ce2f52c38a?source_code=xxxxxxFull story: https://www.thecentersquare.com/national/article_03a75b0c-3fb8-11ef-8200-6b92d524c8c4.html  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Greetings, everyone, and welcome to America in Focus, powered by the Center Square. I'm Dan McAulib, chief content officer at Franklin News Foundation, publisher of the Center Square Newswire Service. We are recording this on Friday, July 12th. President Joe Biden Thursday night held his first news conference since his disastrous performance in the debate two weeks ago with former President Donald Trump, and while Biden spoke mostly competently about a range of policy issues during the hour-long presser, He made several high-profile mistakes, including calling his vice president, Kamala Harris, Vice President Trump. He also had trouble finishing his thoughts and in many answers to questions with, quote, Anyway.

Joining me today to discuss this is Casey Harper, Washington, D.C. Bureau Chief of the Center Square. Casey, did Biden's performance do enough to assuage Democrats' concerns of his candidacy and his chances of beating Trump in November? Yeah, that is the question. That was the question going into the press conference. it's why all eyes were on it. It's why we covered it so thoroughly at the center square.com. And now on the other side of that press conference, you know, that's the question that Washington, D.C., where I live, is asking. And I think he had a middling performance. You know,

I saw some Democrats saying that this is the worst possible, worst case scenario because Biden did not do bad enough to immediately end his campaign. He did just good enough to keep stretching it out, keep it going, but also gave some very cringe-worthy flubs, gavs, stumbles, as he is, you know, as he has been prone to do. And as you mentioned, of course, like the breaking news, Dan, that Biden announced a new vice presidential candidate. I really wanted us to write a story that Biden announced this new VP, but I guess it'd be a little misleading. But, you know, there's going to be, those are viral clips. Those are going to go around, you know, be added to the very lengthy montage of Biden gavs. I mean, Vice President Donald Trump is pretty

bad. Calling Zelensky, President Putin, he's pretty bad. And it was in front of the whole world. All the world leaders were there. They saw the whole thing. He took some really tough questions from reporters at that press conference saying basically what we're thinking, which is, is it giving America a bad reputation? Is it embarrassing on the national stage that you're having so many mental lapses with the whole world watching? So, you know, we wrote also at the sooner square.com earlier this week, that former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who's been a longtime leader in the Democrat Party, of course, kind of gave Biden an out and even sort of signaled that he should reconsider staying in the race. But she framed it as, you know, once all this NATO

stuff is over, then Biden should make a decision, which is really interesting because Biden has been emphatic that he has made his decision. So when, you know, Pelosi gets up there and says, well, let's make the decision after NATO. It kind of signals, well, maybe, you know, she thinks he hasn't made the right decision. And, you know, she is just one of many. Democrats who has raised this concern, including even elected Democrats, even, you know, like, I don't know why it matters, but George Clooney has been pretty in the news about calling for Biden to step down. And he held, you know, he owes fundraisers for Democrats. So, you know, all this stuff is swirling around Biden. I'd be curious to hear what you think, Dan, but I think he did,

not bad enough to be a fatal blow, but just good enough to keep like a deer that's been gutshot, just kind of limping through the woods. I think I would agree with that assessment. Trump, of course, himself couldn't resist, pounced on the Vice President Trump flub for Biden last night on his truth social account. But yeah, he did talk rather competently about a wide range of policy issues of the Ukraine-Russia war, Israel Hamas war, the economy, things like that. He was, and he talked for it was a good hour, which kind of surprised me. But then it's some of the mistakes are just self-inflicted. Like at the beginning of the Q&A portion of the president, conference, he says, I've been given a list of people to call on here, as if he's not the one that's making the decisions. So why would you even if that's the case, even if he has been given a list of people to call on, why would you say that at the top of the press conference? That means you are being managed. You're not managing yourself. But again, yes, he lasted an hour. And I, that's a low bar, though, Casey, right? I know. The president was able to talk about policy issues for an hour. Within that hour.

Or he made a number of significant and embarrassing errors. I don't know what Democrats are going to do. Hey, Dan, I want to congratulate you on working a whole hour yesterday. He really, that was great. Well, there were a couple of 10-minute breaks in there. Right, exactly. Yeah, I mean, the point about being managed is one of the main points and main concerns. You know, a lot has been made on social media about Jill Biden potentially being some kind of, you know, false shadow president or something, pulling the strings behind the scenes.

I think there's for a while been questions about how influential the Obamas are in this White House, given that, you know, Biden is Obama's old VP. But it's just clear from watching these that there's just no way that for 12, 14, 16 hours a day that Biden is sharp, making big decisions, analyzing tough problems, you know, interrogating his cabinet to get to the bottom of things. There's just no way that's happening. I mean, we're impressed by one hour on his feet, giving a speech, which is kind of the easier part of being president. That's not the hard decisions. It's not the late nights. It's not the drone strikes or anything like that. So clearly, you know, a lot of people behind the scenes have a lot of power because Biden is just not able to even be awake for all the decisions.

So I don't know. I think it hurts him, you know, I've been writing about some polling, Dan. Trump has really pulled ahead in a lot of the pollings. Even before the debate, he was leading in the swing states, doing very well in the swing states. But nationally, you know, Biden was doing better. But since that poll, I think it'll take a little more time to tell. but we've seen the shift in favor of Trump a few points where he's leading not only in swing states, but also nationally. And you see in those polls that if RFK Jr. is somehow allowed to get on some ballots, that he takes away from Biden. So right now, all the momentum is in Trump's favor. Biden tried to go out there and dispel some concerns.

He may have bought himself some time, but I don't think he solved his problems by any stretch. And the calendar is not working in Democrats favor right now. The Democratic National Convention is just about a month of one. way in Chicago, there's not a lot of time between now and then when the formal nomination is given and accepted for Democrats to decide what to do here. More Democrats, a couple more Democrats, congressional Democrats, have come out and said Biden should step aside this morning after his performance last night. And it just seems to be snowballing. But there's no one there who's going to make a decision if Biden doesn't make it himself. And he's been staunch and saying he's

running. He's the best candidate for the Democrats. Yep, just strong enough to win the nomination, but weak enough possibly to lose the general. And then there's also the concern about the down-ballot candidates. The House, Republicans have a slight majority in the U.S. House. Democrats have a slight majority in the U.S. Senate. If voters are not enthused by their presidential nominee, meaning Joe Biden, how is that going to impact these congressional races and control of those two chambers. Yeah, I mean, that's why you see so many elected Democrats coming out so strongly. If you are a Democrat in a purple swing district, you are in trouble. I mean, good luck convincing fundraisers to give to your campaign, because we just know in those swing districts,

who's on the top of the ballot matters so much. And if Trump is able to get a lot of enthusiasm to bring a lot of voters to the polls, but Biden's not able to do that, it doesn't really matter often how good of a candidate you are, because people show up for the president. It should be that everyone does a lot of research on their congressional representative, and I wish they did, but reality is they don't always do that. They just vote down ballot. They just click R or D. And if they don't like the top Republican or the top Democrat, they don't vote at all. And so that's what Democrats are worried about right now. I personally think they've resigned themselves to losing the Senate. They're trying to do something in the House where they can

keep it from being, which would be pretty amazing or pretty not, I'm not saying in a great way, just kind of something to behold, which would be Trump in office on a revenge tour, as he himself has said, with a Republican majority in the House and Senate. Thank you for joining us today, Casey. Listeners can keep up with this story and more at thecentersquare.com.