Biden’s good press conference buys him time
Biden’s good press conference buys him time
For better, or worse. “I am not in this for my legacy. I am in this to finish the job we started,” Biden said July 11. “I’ve got to finish this job, because there’s so much at stake.”
I thought President Biden made a strong case for his presidency--and his cogency--at his hour long press conference last night, a couple gaffes aside. But he resisted any desire by some supporters to praise his first term legacy—bolstering the NATO alliance, supporting Ukraine from Putin’s invasion, strengthening the U.S. economy and manufacturing base--and turn over the reins to someone else, saying he still has so much work to do, and he’s convinced he can beat Trump again.
“I am not in this for my legacy,” Biden said. “I am in this to finish the job we started.”
“The fact is that… I think I’m the most qualified person to run for president,” he said. “I beat him once, and I will beat him again.”
At some point, though, you have to plan for how best to preserve your legacy—without you being there.
But Biden seemed resistant to make more than a fairly cursory case that his Vice President Kamala Harris (who, in one of two jarring gaffes over the course of the evening, he mis-called “Trump”) or anyone else was as well positioned to beat Trump.
“I wouldn’t have picked her unless I thought she was qualified to be president from the very beginning,” Biden said of Harris. “She is qualified to be president. That’s why I picked her.”
On foreign policy, Biden really showed his sophisticated and detailed understanding of the world and the value of his long experience and relationships.
“I’m not having any of my European allies come up to me and say, ‘Joe, don’t run,’” Biden said. “What I hear them say is, ‘You’ve got to win. You can’t let this guy come forward. He’d be a disaster.’”
“And so, what I can say is I think I am the best qualified person to do the job, to make sure that Ukraine… succeeds, that the European alliance stays strong.”
Earlier in the afternoon, Biden’s national security advisor Jake Sullivan movingly recounted NATO leaders the night before praising Biden for his support for the transatlantic alliance over the course of his career.
“What I have heard as they went around the table yesterday at the North Atlantic Council session…was a drumbeat of praise for the United States, but also for President Biden personally, for what he’s done to strengthen NATO, especially as president, but also over the course of his entire career,” Sullivan said. “Leaders really made a point of reinforcing their gratitude to him on that.”
Biden said he is perfectly prepared to be in high pressure talks with China’s Xi and Russian President Vladimir Putin, both now or three years from now, though he said he does not see the value in meeting with Putin at this point.
“I’m dealing with Xi right now, in direct contact with him,” Biden said. “I have no good reason to talk to Putin right now. There’s not much that he is prepared to do in terms of accommodating any change in his behavior.”
“I think that I’m prepared to talk to any leader who wants to talk, including if Putin called me and he wanted to talk,” he added. “There is an inclination on the part of the Chinese to keep in contact with me, because they’re not sure where this all goes.”
Asked by NPR’s Asma Khalid about when he was running in 2020 saying he envisioned being a ‘bridge’ president, but, now that he is running again in 2024–what changed, Biden responded:
“What changed was the gravity of the situation I inherited in terms of the economy, our foreign policy, and domestic division,” Biden said.
“What I realized was, my long time in the Senate had equipped me to have the wisdom to know how to deal with the Congress to get things done,” he said. “And I want to finish it.”
A bit later, he circled back, suggesting he feels compelled to run because of the continuing threat U.S. democracy is still under, more than three years after Trump urged a mob to storm the U.S. Capitol to prevent the certification of Biden’s election victory. (The Supreme Court last month gave terrifying impunity to U.S. presidents, saying they could never be prosecuted for official acts taken while president.)
“Do you think our democracy is under siege based on this [Supreme] Court?” Biden said. “Do you think democracy is under siege based on Project 2025?
“That’s the other reason why I didn’t…hand off to another generation,” Biden said. “I’ve got to finish this job, because there’s so much at stake.”
**
Recommended reading and listening:
“A Remarkable Comeback” for left-behind counties under Biden, by the New York Times’ Jim Tankersley:
America’s so-called “left behind” counties — the once-great manufacturing centers and other distressed places that struggled mightily at the start of this century — have staged a remarkable comeback. In the last three years, they added jobs and new businesses at their fastest pace since Bill Clinton was president.
The turnaround has shocked experts. “This is the kind of thing that we couldn’t have even dreamed about five or six years ago,” said John Lettieri, the president of the Economic Innovation Group, a think tank that studies economic distress in the U.S. His group is releasing a report today that details the recovery of left-behind counties.
Those counties span the nation but are largely concentrated in the Southeast and Midwest. In today’s newsletter, I’ll explain how they defied recent trends — including a particularly grim stretch under Donald Trump — to rebound so strongly from the pandemic recession. I’ll also show the one indicator that helps explain why voters there might not reward President Biden for the good news that has happened on his watch.
Transcript of Biden’s press conference July 11:
David Frum in the Atlantic on “Biden’s heart-breaking press conference”:
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2024/07/biden-fades/678978/
This Ezra Klein podcast episode featuring Ezra in conversation with Jamelle Bouie
**