During a crucial press conference Thursday night, President Joe Biden made an embarrassing slip of the tongue by mistakenly calling Vice President Kamala Harris “Vice President Trump.”
A Reuters reporter questioned whether Biden was confident in Harris’ ability to challenge former President Donald Trump, should she need to lead the Democratic ticket and run for president.
Biden responded: “Look, I wouldn’t have picked Vice President Trump as vice president if I didn’t think she was unqualified to be president.”
He added: “The fact is, I think I’m the most qualified person to run for president. I beat him once and I’ll beat him again,” although he faltered slightly in his words.
He later clarified: “I wouldn’t have chosen her if I didn’t think she was qualified to be president. I was very clear about that from the beginning. She is qualified to be president.”
The remarks were part of a press conference scheduled for 6:30 p.m. on Thursday, but actually began an hour later. This was the president’s first solo press conference since November, when he delivered it in the middle of a NATO summit in Washington DC.
During the launch of the Ukraine Pact, the president mistakenly referred to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as “President Putin.” He quickly corrected the mistake and shared a relaxed moment with Zelenskyy about it.
Democrats have called for the president to resign following his disappointing performance in a debate against former President Donald Trump, who is likely to be his political opponent in the November election, just as he did in 2020. Biden appeared to struggle during the debate, stumbling over his words and speaking in a weak voice, leading his party to scramble to manage the fallout.
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Thursday’s conference was expected to be a major event in what has been seen as a crucial week for Biden’s campaign. His last formal solo news conference took place in November 2023, where he took questions from reporters after a summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping in California.
At that press conference, Biden took questions from four different organizations, one of which asked him two questions. White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre stepped in to wrap up the conference, but not before Biden answered nine more questions.
Their last joint press conference took place last month, after the G7 summit. Since the disastrous June debate, Biden has been trying to fend off calls to backtrack from that debate and reassure not just senior members of his own party, but the broader public, that he is up to the task.
He is already expected to become the Democratic presidential nominee at the Democratic National Convention, which will be held from August 19 to 22 in Chicago, Illinois.
But if his party intervenes, it could mean the end of his political career.
Peter Welch, a Democratic senator from Vermont, was the first to call for Biden’s resignation, and on Thursday, another Democrat added his name to the growing list of politicians who have made the same call.
Rep. Ed Case (D-Hawaii) issued a statement Thursday afternoon expressing concerns and doubts about whether Biden will be able to perform the duties of the “toughest job in the world” for another four years.
Case acknowledged that replacing him would be “difficult and uncertain,” but the Democrat does not believe that continuing on a path that continues to place the 81-year-old on a pedestal is the “best path forward for our country.”
Case is now among more than a dozen House Democrats who have issued a similar call, with several of them appearing Thursday ahead of the news conference.
Research by Martha Kumar, a presidential scholar and professor emeritus of political science at Towson University, finds that President Biden has held fewer press conferences and given fewer interviews than any of his recent predecessors. He has held just 37 press conferences during his presidency.
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By contrast, Ronald Reagan, the president who held the fewest press conferences in recent history, held only 25 at the same point in his presidency. Next on the list after Biden was Barack Obama, who held 73.
Most presidents have celebrated nearly 100 or more.
Kumar’s research suggests Biden prefers brief, informal exchanges with reporters over formal briefings. Biden holds the record for the fewest interviews a president has participated in since Reagan, with just 133.
The second lowest number of votes was George W. Bush, who at the same time in his presidency had 171.
As calls for Biden to resign intensify, divisions are beginning to bite within the Democratic Party just months before what many consider one of the most pivotal elections in most Americans’ lifetimes. How this will impact not only next month’s Democratic National Convention, but also the Nov. 5 election, remains to be seen.
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