Morning Report — Biden press conference won’t end drama

by Alexis Simendinger and Kristina Karisch - 07/12/24 6:45 AM ET

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President Biden made his case Thursday to continue as his party’s nominee but said he understands why it’s important “to allay fears” among voters and fellow Democrats.

The president said he intends to “keep moving” during upcoming campaign appearances in Michigan, Texas and Nevada, but he acknowledged he has heard Democratic skeptics who would like to see him replaced on the ticket.

During a 59-minute solo news conference in Washington at the end of a three-day NATO summit, Biden transposed Vice President Harris’s name and that of former President Trump without catching his error a few hours after he introduced visiting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky as “President Putin,” and corrected himself immediately. In both instances, his meaning was clear, but his mistakes were notable after weeks of turmoil within the Democratic Party about Biden’s disastrous June 27 debate and doubts about his stamina and skills to go up against Trump, let alone serve another four years.

An expanding list of lawmakers and prominent party donors urged the president before his news conference to make way for a new nominee. More Democrats echoed such advice afterward, while others defended Biden’s fluency with foreign policy.

DEMOCRATIC LEADERS in the House and Senate, worried about control of Congress in 2025, are privately telling colleagues they could be open to a change on the presidential ticket but worry about intraparty ruptures and chaos during the party’s Chicago convention next month. The potential payoff among voters of such an unprecedented political change less than four months from Election Day is impossible to gauge using existing polls amid a neck-and-neck presidential contest between two unpopular candidates.

▪ CNN: Former President Obama and former Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) have privately spoken to one another about Biden and choices the Democratic Party is confronting.

▪ The Hill: What are Democratic strategists saying?

Biden, speaking extemporaneously after calling on reporters from a list created by the White House, did not rule anything out.

Is he in the race to stay, or is he weighing the alternative?

“I’ve determined I’m running, but I think it’s important to allay fears,” Biden said.

What would nudge him out of the race? If his top advisers came to him and said, “there’s no way you can win,” he replied, quickly adding, “no poll’s saying that.” (Days ago, the president said he’d have to hear that from the “Lord Almighty.”)

Is he the only Democrat who could defeat Trump? No, he volunteered, “but it would be hard to start from scratch.”

Could Harris do the job? Biden praised the vice president and said unequivocally that she is “qualified to be president.”

Can Democratic delegates choose another nominee? “Obviously they’re free to do whatever they want, but I have overwhelming support,” the president asserted while leaning into his microphone and dropping his voice for emphasis. “It’s not going to happen.”

Politico Magazine: Some Democratic delegates have received “temperature checks” from Biden campaign aides in calls ahead of the convention.

Would Biden agree to a neurological exam before the election and release the results? “I’ll do it,” he said, if physicians believe he should have another such test.

“The only thing that age does is it creates a little bit of wisdom, if you pay attention,” the 81-year-old added.

CAMPAIGNING VS. GOVERNING: The president distinguished between his acumen as a candidate and his governing talents, which he believes voters should prize more. He said decades of Senate and White House experience are the bedrock of what he described as his administration’s legislative wins, success in forging global alliances, strategies with world adversaries and determined defenses of freedom, federal rights and democracy.

Biden said his reasons for seeking a second term are twofold: to defeat Trump, whom he views as a threat to the nation, and continued support for America’s middle class and working families. “I’ve got to finish this job because there’s so much at stake,” he said. “I believe I’m the best qualified to govern.”

▪ The Washington Post: Here’s why no one can say with certainty right now that other candidates would do significantly better against Trump than Biden. The Democratic Party is left operating on instinct.

▪ The New York Times: The Biden campaign has polled to test Harris’s strengths vs. Trump.

▪ The Hill’s Niall Stanage, The Memo: Five takeaways from Biden’s pivotal press conference.

▪ The Associated Press: Biden’s challenge: Will he ever satisfy the media’s appetite for questions about his ability?

👉Video of the complete news conference is HERE.

3 THINGS TO KNOW TODAY

▪ White House senior adviser Anita Dunn met this week with dozens of crypto leaders at a roundtable organized by crypto-friendly Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna (Calif.). Attendees described the discussion as “productive.”

▪ La Niña, a climate pattern linked to cool Pacific Ocean conditions, is coming. Here’s how it could change the weather.

▪ 📉 Inflation is falling, contributing to analysts’ anticipation that the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates, perhaps beginning this fall. The consumer price index reported by the Labor Department on Thursday dropped 0.1 percent in June from May, putting the 12-month rate at 3 percent, around its lowest level in more than three years. The largest contributor: Lower gasoline prices.

LEADING THE DAY

MORE IN POLITICS

BEST-CASE SCENARIO: Trump’s advisers and allies viewed Biden’s press conference performance as beneficial for the Republican’s campaign: not bad enough to force him out — but enough gaffes that they can campaign on going forward. Trump’s campaign is still hoping Biden stays in the race, believing he is the weakest candidate for the former president to face in November. In a post on Truth Social, Trump mocked Biden for mistakenly referring to Harris as “Vice President Trump” (Politico and The Hill).

“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,” Trump posted. “Great job, Joe!”

Biden’s next test comes Monday, when he’ll sit down for an interview with NBC’s Lester Holt.

MAR-A-LAGO MEETING: Trump met Thursday with Viktor Orbán, Hungary’s nationalist leader, following the NATO summit in Washington. The move is likely to aggravate frustrations among Western allies, and comes after similar secretive trips to Russia and China in recent days. Orbán has openly endorsed Trump and has pinned hopes on the former president being able to bring an end to Russia’s war in Ukraine.

The European Union’s longest-serving leader has become an icon to some populists for championing so-called illiberal democracy, which includes restrictions on immigration and LGBTQ+ rights. Orbán has also cracked down on his country’s press and judiciary (The Hill and The New York Times).

AT THE REPUBLICAN NATIONAL CONVENTION in Milwaukee, Trump will face fewer legal complications than expected after the Supreme Court’s ruling on presidential immunity resulted in a delay of his sentencing to September. Now, the former president has asked a state court judge to toss out his criminal conviction in New York based on the Supreme Court’s decision, an effort that likely faces an uphill battle with Judge Juan Merchan (NBC News).

Seven battleground states are sending fake electors and others who worked to upend the 2020 election results to represent their state parties at the Republican convention in Milwaukee, where they will officially elect Trump as their presidential nominee. Their role marks a shift for a party that, at least in the immediate aftermath of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, sought to distance itself from Trump and his efforts to stay in power.

“Election denialism is like the price of entry now,” former Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.), a vocal Trump critic, told CNN. “These people that were in the fake elector scheme, or got a mug shot, they’re now the heroes of the movement, and they’ve taken over the party.”

2024 Roundup

▪ Republican Convention in Milwaukee: Everything you need to know.

▪ Former first lady Melania Trump is expected to make an appearance during next week’s Republican National Convention. She has appeared infrequently on the campaign trail during the 2024 contest.

▪ Donald Trump Jr. is scheduled to speak right before his father’s vice-presidential pick at the RNC Wednesday.

▪ The nonpartisan Cook Political Report moved its analysis of the Michigan Senate contest to a tossup.

▪ Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Reps. Alexandria Ocascio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and other liberal lawmakers are defending Biden as the party’s nominee. Some strategists and sources close to progressive members say they may be playing a longer game with incentives in mind should Biden remain in the race and win.

▪ The Republican Party platform on education, if enacted, would fundamentally change how K-12 and higher education funding and curriculum work.

▪ Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) was the GOP’s rising star — until Trump came along. Now, a decade later, the senator is back in the conversation about the party’s future.

▪ The Utah Supreme Court ruled Thursday that the GOP-controlled state Legislature was wrong to bypass an independent redistricting commission created through a voter-approved ballot initiative and establish its own House maps instead.

WHERE AND WHEN

The House will meet at 2 p.m. Monday.

The Senate will convene at 11:15 a.m. Monday for a pro forma session.

The president will receive the President’s Daily Brief at 10 a.m. Biden will travel to battleground Michigan for a campaign event in Detroit at 6 p.m. He will fly to Delaware tonight.

Vice President Harris has no public events.

ZOOM IN

CONGRESS

TEN HOUSE REPUBLICANS JOINED most Democrats on Thursday in sinking GOP-led legislation to fund the legislative branch for fiscal 2025, throwing an embarrassing wrench in GOP leadership’s ambitious plan to pass all 12 annual funding bills by the August recess. The bill failed 205-213, with three Democrats voting in favor of it. It is the fifth funding bill for fiscal 2025 Republicans have brought to the floor. The other four passed. Republicans leaving the chamber on Thursday said they were caught off guard by the outcome. Rep. Steve Womack (R-Ark.), a spending cardinal, told reporters he was surprised “at the number” (The Hill).

“You have to ask them,” Womack said. “I know in one case, I think it has to do with a philosophical difference on member pay.”

The House on Thursday rejected a resolution to hold Attorney General Merrick Garland in “inherent contempt” for failing to turn over the audiotapes of Biden’s interview with special counsel Robert Hur. The “privileged” resolution, written by Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.), called for the House to impose a $10,000 daily fine on Garland for each day he fails to hand over the audiotapes. Four Republicans joined all Democrats to defeat the measure, 204-210, with unexpected GOP absences driving down the vote count (NBC News).

▪ The Hill: A report from Senate Democratic staff shows the cascading effects of abortion bans across all states, even those where the procedure is still legal.

▪ The Hill: Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.) voted with Republicans on Thursday to block a Biden judicial nominee.

Rep. Jennifer Wexton (D-Va.), who has a condition called progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP) that affects her speech and the volume of her voice, said she cried “happy tears” when she heard the new-old version of her voice created with AI from old recordings. She is not seeking reelection in November (NBC Washington).

ELSEWHERE

© The Associated Press / Susan Walsh | Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky met with NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer at the NATO summit in Washington Thursday.

INTERNATIONAL

UKRAINE URGED NATO to lift restrictions on use of long-range weapons against targets in Russia, saying it would be a “game changer” in its war with Moscow. NATO members issued a declaration in support of Ukraine at a summit in Washington on Wednesday, promising additional aid and pledging to support its “irreversible path” to NATO membership (Reuters).

“If we want to win, if we want to prevail, if we want to save our country and to defend it, we need to lift all the limitations,” Zelensky said alongside NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg in the final hours of the summit (The Associated Press).

Biden announced a new military aid package earlier in the day and pledged to Zelensky: “We will stay with you, period.”

Reuters: The United Nations General Assembly on Thursday demanded that Russia “urgently withdraw its military and other unauthorized personnel” from Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant.

CEASE-FIRE TALKS: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday increased his demands for a cease-fire and hostage deal with Hamas, even as the White House expressed optimism that a deal was getting closer. Progress was occurring in part because Hamas had softened some of its positions, U.S. and Israeli officials told Axios.

“Netanyahu gave these tough demands because he is trying to use Hamas’s weakness to get as much as he can out of the negotiations,” an Israeli official involved in the talks said. “But there is a risk that he will go too far and the negotiations collapse.”

USA Today: Plagued by looting and weather-related problems, a high-profile $230 million pier that the White House said would bring massive amounts of humanitarian aid into Gaza is shutting down after just two months.

OPINION

■ The Democrats have a lot of options. Surrender can’t be one of them, by Eugene Robinson, columnist, The Washington Post.

■ What to expect at the Republican coronation, by Mary Ellen Klas, Bloomberg Opinion columnist.

THE CLOSER

© The Associated Press / Murray Becker | Former President Franklin D. Roosevelt, pictured in Hyde Park, N.Y., after his reelection to a fourth term on Nov. 7, 1944, died of a massive stroke four months later.

And finally … 👏👏👏 Congratulations to this week’s Morning Report Quiz winners! Our puzzle took a cue from current headlines and explored the health and medical matters of some former U.S. presidents.

Here’s who went 4/4: Richard Baznik, Chuck Schoenenberger, Phil Kirstein, Mark Williamson, Casey Teeters, Fred Lewis, Jaina Mehta Buck, John Trombetti, Will Bushman, Sharon Banitt, Ned Sauthoff, Harry Strulovici, Linda Field, Stan Wasser, Peter John, Mark Roeddiger, Terry Pflaumer, Jack Barshay, Wiley Pearson, Rick Schmidtke, Pam Manges, Savannah Petracca and Robert Bradley.

John F. Kennedy suffered behind the scenes from Addison’s disease, and the public was unaware for decades that the president had several maladies, experienced debilitating pain and took many medications while in the White House. Long after the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, private medical records revealed that during that standoff, Kennedy was taking antispasmodics to control colitis, antibiotics for a urinary infection and hydrocortisone and testosterone, plus salt tablets, for adrenal insufficiency and energy. The answer we looked for was “all of the above.”

President Woodrow Wilson had a severe stroke in 1919. At the time, the public was not informed that first lady Edith Wilson handled many executive matters in “stewardship” for Wilson until the end of his term in 1921.

Eight months before his election to a fourth term, an ill President Franklin D. Roosevelt quietly received a complete physical from a team of doctors and was diagnosed with “hypertension, hypertensive heart disease, cardiac failure (left ventricle) and acute bronchitis.” His condition and prescribed treatment were not detailed to the public. A massive stroke killed Roosevelt a year later.

President George W. Bush in 2002 briefly lost consciousness at the White House when he choked on a pretzel and tumbled off a sofa, resulting in a bruised lower lip and an observable abrasion on his cheek. The White House and a physician publicly detailed the episode.

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