More Democrats broke ranks to urge Joe Biden to scrap his re-election bid after the 81-year-old president embarrassingly fluffed his lines in front of fellow Nato leaders and at a news conference.
Concluding a two-day summit on Thursday, Sir Keir Starmer was among the 31 other Nato leaders on stage as the leader of the free world introduced Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky as “President Putin”, drawing gasps of shock from the audience.
While the oldest US president yet was quick to correct himself, he made another damaging gaffe at the start of an hour-long news conference later on when he mixed up the name of his vice president, Kamala Harris, with his Republican rival Donald Trump. This time he left the mistake uncorrected.
The president began hoarsely, coughing frequently, but grew in confidence at his first solo news conference since November 2023, ranging in detail over foreign policy challenges including China and Russia.
Mr Biden delivered a forceful defence of his domestic priorities, including a woman’s right to an abortion and the need for gun control, declaring: “I’m not in this for my legacy. I’m in this to complete the job.”
However, following his calamitous debate performance against Mr Trump, the verbal errors provoked more Democratic critics to argue that the party needs to adopt a different candidate for November’s presidential election when it convenes in Chicago next month.
At least 17 members of the House of Representatives and one senator have now urged Mr Biden to bow out, opening up the nominating convention to Vice President Harris or another leading Democrat such as a state governor.
Connecticut Representative Jim Himes, the top Democrat on the House intelligence committee, urged the president to “continue to put our nation first, and as he promised, make way for a new generation of leaders”.
Representative Greg Stanton of Arizona echoed him in saying: “For our country’s sake, it is time for the president to pass the torch to a new generation of leaders.”
Prominent donors such as actor George Clooney are also calling on Mr Biden to drop out. Former president Barack Obama and ex-Speaker Nancy Pelosi were reported to have spoken privately about their old colleague and the looming election.
“They are watching and waiting for President Biden to reach a decision on his own,” one longtime Democrat close to all the party elders told CNN.
Mr Trump weighed in live on the news conference with a clip on his social media network of the president saying “Vice President Trump” instead of Harris. The former president commented sarcastically: “Great job, Joe!”
Mr Biden’s account on X (formerly Twitter) retorted: “By the way: Yes, I know the difference. One’s a prosecutor, and the other’s a felon.”
Mr Trump become the first former or sitting president to be convicted of a crime when he was found guilty in May on all counts in an historic New York trial, related to his falsification of business records after an alleged affair with former porn star Stormy Daniels.
The Prime Minister tried to cover for the president, as did the French and German leaders, arguing anyone can slip up.
Grilled about Mr Biden’s mental acuity, Sir Keir told reporters: “I would urge everyone to look at the substance of what’s been achieved over these two days” in terms of support for Ukraine.
He said: “When we think of the global threats, that is the best possible outcome we could have had today and so I think he deserves credit for that, as does the team that worked with him.
“We close this council with renewed confidence and resolve to meet the challenge of Russian aggression. That is the outcome we all hoped we would get to and President Biden led us through that.”
Earlier, asked whether Mr Biden was senile, Sir Keir told the BBC: “No… he’s shown incredible leadership.”Describing their first one-to-one meeting in the Oval Office, the PM said: “We were billed for 45 minutes, we went on for the best part of an hour. He was absolutely across all the detail. We were going at pace through a number of issues.”
Mindful of Mr Trump’s threats to end support for Ukraine and even withdraw the US from Nato, the alliance leaders offered new pledges to Mr Zelensky of air defence support, including Patriot missile systems and F-16 fighter jets.
They reaffirmed that Ukraine is on an “irreversible path” to NATO membership and pledged to maintain at least $43 billion in annual support to Kyiv as it battles against Russia’s invasion.
Mr Zelensky shrugged off the US president’s mis-step when he was introduced as “President Putin”. The Ukrainian leader exclaimed: “I’m better.”
Mr Biden insisted that none of his European partners wanted him to drop out of the race against Mr Trump. “What I hear them say is ‘you’ve gotta win, you can’t let this guy come forward. He’d be a disaster.”
