During his high-stakes news conference at the NATO summit in Washington, D.C. on July 11, U.S. President Joe Biden vowed to stay in the presidential race and defended his mental acuity. 

This came after Democratic lawmakers urged the 81-year-old to exit the race following a disastrous first debate with former President Donald Trump on June 27.

At the NATO summit, Biden claimed he will defeat Trump in November just as he did in the past race. He also called his first debate performance with Trump “a dumb mistake” that he has time to recover from.

“I beat him once, and I’ll beat him again,” Biden said. “There’s a long way to go in this campaign, I’m just going to keep moving.”

These past nine months of Biden’s unwavering support for Israel’s genocide in Gaza had already lost him thousands of votes in swing states like Michigan. 

However, a Pew Research Center poll released on July 11 showed that his numbers continue to trail behind Trump, who is also a staunch supporter of Israel. 

This is while Trump has been charged with dozens of felonies across four separate cases. The charges range from business fraud to obstruction of justice to racketeering. 

According to the poll, American voters described both candidates as “embarrassing.”

Biden’s Incoherent Debate Performance

Biden’s performance in this year’s first presidential debate consisted of verbal gaffes, visible confusion, and multiple stutters that led American voters to question his mental aptitude for another presidency. 

His first minor gaffe confused trillionaires with billionaires while discussing Trump’s economic policies that “benefited the very wealthy.”

“What I’m going to do is fix the tax system. For example, we have a thousand trillionaires in America,” Biden said before correcting himself. “I mean, a thousand billionaires.”

Biden also lost his train of thought while discussing the economy and “wiping out” Trump’s debt, confusing COVID with Medicare.

“We’d be able to help make sure all those things we need to do: child care, elder care, making sure that we continue to strengthen our healthcare system,” he said. “Making sure that we’re able to make every single solitary person eligible for what I’ve been able to do with the with the COVID, excuse me, with um, dealing with everything we have to with, uh, look, if… we finally beat Medicare.”

The moderator cut off Biden mid-sentence. Trump immediately fired back, saying, “He’s right, he did beat Medicare, he beat it to death.” 

While trying to defend his immigration record, Biden delivered another confusing statement.

“Since I’ve changed the law, what’s happened? I’ve changed it in a way that now, you’re in a situation where there are 40 percent fewer people coming across the border illegally, it’s better than when [Trump] left office,” Biden said. “And I’m going to continue to move it until we get the total ban on … the total initiative relative to what we’re going to do with more Border Patrol and more asylum officers.”

“I really don’t know what he said at the end of that sentence. I don’t think he knows what he said either,” Trump reacted. 

In another minor slip, Biden confused the Paris Climate Accords, an international treaty on climate change adopted in 2015, with the Paris Peace Accords, an agreement ending the Vietnam War in 1973. 

“[Trump] hasn’t done a damn thing for the environment,” Biden said. “He pulled out of the Paris Peace Accords … uh, Climate Accord.”

Trump’s Racist Debate Rhetoric

Trump also faced public criticism, especially for using racist rhetoric. First, he claimed migrants were taking “Black jobs” and “Hispanic jobs” from Americans. His statement outraged democrats. 

He also used “Palestinian” as a racial slur during the debate, calling Biden “a very bad Palestinian” who isn’t allowing Israel to “finish the job” in Gaza.

“He doesn’t want to do it. He’s become like a Palestinian – but they don’t like him because he’s a very bad Palestinian, he’s a weak one,” Trump added. 

Both candidates competed to prove their utmost support for Israel, with no regard for Palestinian lives. There was no mention of the more than 40,000 Palestinians killed by Israel thus far, nor a call for an end to the aggression. 

In an interview with Al Jazeera, director of American Muslims for Palestine Ayah Ziyadeh explained that while one candidate is “blatantly racist,” “wants to deport all of us,” and thinks “President Biden isn’t being genocidal enough,” the other candidate “has been consciously and willingly, politically and financially, backing an evident genocide in Gaza.”

“There is no lesser than two evils here,” she added. “The card we are being dealt with as voters and as Americans is frankly unfair.”

Biden Defends Himself at the NATO Summit

On the final day of the NATO summit in Washington, D.C., Biden was questioned about his age and mental fitness during a news conference. 

Although the president said he had “taken three significant and intense neurological exams” that prove he is in good shape, he made major gaffes that day that did not help his case.

Just before the start of the conference, he introduced Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as Russia’s “President Putin.” The mistake went viral across social media platforms. 

In another embarrassing moment, he referred to Vice President Kamala Harris as “vice president Trump.” 

“I wouldn’t have picked vice-president Trump to be vice-president, if she’s not qualified to be president,” he said.

Trump seized the opportunity to mock Biden on social media for this gaffe.

“Crooked Joe begins his ‘Big Boy’ press conference with, ‘I wouldn’t have picked Vice-President Trump to be vice-president, though I think she was not qualified to be president,’” he said. “Great job, Joe!”

Biden then took a jab at Trump for his criminal record. “By the way: Yes, I know the difference,” Biden wrote on X. “One’s a prosecutor, and the other’s a felon.”

Biden, who is commander-in-chief of the U.S. military, made another major slip when he said he was “following the advice of my commander-in-chief” on Ukraine policy. 

He also bragged about his popularity in Israel in an attempt to convince the U.S. public to vote for him. “Look at the numbers in Israel,” he said. “I mean my [poll] numbers are better in Israel than they are here.”

The Democratic Party in Crisis

Before the NATO news conference, a number of House of Representatives Democrats called on Biden to withdraw from the race. Some even proposed Vice President Kamala Harris as Biden’s obvious replacement. 

On July 7, Congressman Adam Schiff of California told NBC’s Meet The Press that Biden has to “pass the torch to someone who can” win if he can’t. He said Harris could “very well win overwhelmingly” against Trump.

Others endorsed Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, Illinois Governor JB Pritzker, California Governor Gavin Newsom, and Maryland Governor Wes Moore as possible contenders.

At the end of the conference, Biden addressed his critics and claimed his European allies support his second run.  “I’ve not had any of my European allies come up and say, ‘Joe, don’t run,’” he said. “What I’ve heard them say is, ‘You’ve got to win.’” 

Biden insisted that nothing indicates that he can’t get the job done, adding that he would not exit the race even if polls showed Harris had a higher chance of winning. 

After the conference ended, more House democrats, including Connecticut’s Jim Himes, Illinois’ Eric Sorensen, and California’s Scott Peters called on Biden to quit the race.

Himes, a top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, wrote on X, “We must put forth the strongest candidate possible to confront the threat posed by Trump’s promised MAGA authoritarianism. I no longer believe that is Joe Biden.” Peters said in a statement, “The stakes are high, and we are on a losing course.” Sorensen said that Biden should “put country over party.”

More than a dozen House Democrats and one Senate Democrat so far have directly called on Biden to exit the race. 

Pew Research Poll Reveals Widespread Dissatisfaction

According to the recent Pew Research Center poll published on July 11, American voters are extremely unhappy with the 2024 presidential campaign. 

The poll revealed that 64 percent of voters view Trump as “mean-spirited.” The majority of voters described both Biden and Trump as equally “embarrassing.” 

The center’s surveys over the past year have found broad dissatisfaction “over the state of American politics and the choices for president.” 

Around 87 percent of American voters said “the campaign does not make them feel proud of the country,” 76 percent criticized its lack of focus on “important policy debates,” and 68 percent described the campaign as “too negative.”

About 51 percent of Trump supporters said they are “very or fairly satisfied” with the candidates, while 48 percent said they are “not too or not at all satisfied.” Roughly 81 percent of Biden supporters are unhappy with the candidates. 

Currently, 71 percent of Biden supporters would replace both Biden and Trump, and 23 percent would keep Biden and replace Trump. 

The poll also revealed that “just 30 percent of Trump’s supporters like the way he conducts himself.” Additionally, while Biden’s poll ratings for mental sharpness have decreased throughout his presidency, Trump’s ratings have increased since 2020.