Biden’s high-stakes moment: Tonight’s NATO news conference

July 11, 2024

President Joe Biden will face a moment of high stakes in his campaign for a second term on Thursday evening, July 11, when he engages with reporters in an unscripted news conference at the end of a three-day NATO summit, reports The New York Times.

.The president’s allies, doubters, and enemies will be watching as he fields questions, looking for any evidence that he loses his train of thought, stumbles over his words or lapses into the blank stare that millions of people saw during a debate with former President Donald J. Trump on June 27.

Biden’s performance could either quiet critics or invite a wave of new calls for him to step aside.

White House officials said on Thursday morning that Biden’s news conference had been moved back an hour and is now scheduled to take place at 6:30 p.m. (ET). A national security official said the delay was because of the president’s full schedule at NATO.

How long Mr. Biden remains at the lectern—and how many questions he is willing to field from the press—will represent another key benchmark in how his performance will be judged. A hasty exit, with journalists calling out after him, could fuel more concerns about Biden’s stamina and capacity to handle tough questioning.

Just the fact that Biden agreed to hold the event speaks to the pressure he is facing to prove his contention that the shaky debate was an anomaly. At this point in his term, Biden has held fewer news conferences than any president since Ronald Reagan. His last solo news conference was eight months ago.

In recent days, he has tried to assure shaken allies that he wants to do more unscripted appearances and interviews, but, beyond an interview with ABC on Friday, he has done little of those in the 14 crucial days since the debate.

The White House is not sharing much about how the president is preparing himself for Thursday’s news conference, which will follow a long day of meetings and be carried live on all the major networks.

But an internal White House planning document contained potential questions that touch on Biden’s age and mental acuity, calls from lawmakers that he should drop out, and his thinking about why he is staying in the race, as well as items on foreign policy related to the summit, according to two people familiar with the document who were not authorized to speak publicly.

In addition, the document contains questions he might be asked about foreign policy and the discussions at the NATO meeting. Current and former aides to Biden said he is typically provided with a document before a news conference that contains a categorized list of tough questions across a range of topics. Biden goes over those questions with aides in the days before he appears before reporters.

During his last solo news conference, after a meeting with President Xi Jinping of China in California last year, he fielded a dozen or so questions and the event lasted roughly 20 minutes.

On Thursday, he will walk out to a press corps that has expressed increasing frustration at what they deem a lack of transparency from the White House. On Monday, the White House press briefing devolved into shouting as the press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, repeatedly dodged questions about the president’s health, and why a Parkinson’s doctor had made several visits to the White House.

A tense exchange between Jean-Pierre and the CBS reporter Ed O’Keefe resembled the kind of feisty tête-à-tête that was more common in the Trump Administration, when reporters like CNN’s Jim Acosta repeatedly clashed with the press secretary.

On Thursday, reporters are likely to ask about the steady stream of Democratic lawmakers and donors who have said they do not believe that Mr. Biden can defeat former President Donald J. Trump.

In an interview on MSNBC on Monday morning, July 8, Biden said flatly that “I’m not going to explain any more about what I should or shouldn’t do. I am running. I am running.”

And yet, that declaration is being ignored by some of his most ardent supporters. Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi suggested on Wednesday that he could still change his mind, adding that “we’re all encouraging him to make that decision. Because time is running short.”

George Clooney, the actor and big-time Biden donor, called for Biden to step aside in a deeply critical essay on Wednesday in The New York Times.

“We are not going to win in November with this president,” the actor wrote. “This is the opinion of every senator and Congress member and governor that I’ve spoken with in private. Every single one, irrespective of what he or she is saying publicly.”

Biden has also scheduled an interview on Monday, July 15, with the NBC News anchor Lester Holt. The interview, which will be taped in Texas, is set to air on the network in prime time that evening and last no less than 15 minutes.

Research contact: @nytimes