Biden's Big Boy Press Conference

I watched it, so you don't have to, but since you probably watched it too, I've also fisked the President's answers.

Two days ago, John Kirby assured us that Biden would give a “Big Boy Press Conference” at 630 pm ET on Thursday evening. We were promised that Biden would be flying solo, completely unscripted, and no teleprompter.

Six-thirty came and went. No Biden. Not surprising since he was late to the NATO summit earlier in the day, so much so that Italian PM Giorgia Meloni was seen rolling her eyes about the wait.

It doesn’t help that an hour before his press conference was originally scheduled to start, Biden introduced Ukrainian President Zelensky to the NATO Summit as “President Putin.”

He finally walked out at about 730 pm ET, and it all went downhill from there. Despite the assurances that this would be an unscripted, teleprompter-free event, the President did have teleprompters for his opening speech.

He mumble-stumbled his way through a speech about Ukraine and took credit for warning the world about Putin’s planned invasion. As he old-man-coughed his way through the press conference speech-turned-campaign event, he repeated a couple of out-of-context quotes from Trump. He said Trump would encourage Putin to attack our Nato allies. Trump did say those words, but in the context of other NATO members not paying their share of the costs. Biden also claimed that Trump said Putin's invasion of Ukraine was “genius.” This one comes from an interview Trump did with Clay & Buck. Trump was discussing Putin’s recognition of the disputed Ukranian territories’ vote for independence. He said it was a smart move for Putin to use that as his excuse to invade Ukraine under the guise of being a peacekeeper.

Biden says overall prices are down, including food. This claim only shows how wildly out of touch he is with reality. Just a few weeks ago, there was a TikTok Challenge: Add an old Walmart order to your cart and see how much the prices have changed. Most people found the new price for the old order was almost 200-300% higher than just a few years ago.

Biden then claimed that Trump killed his effort to secure the border, which is not true at all. Trump didn’t kill the bill; the provisions forced into it by the Democrats did. (Dana had Chip Roy on the show to explain.) Biden bragged that he took executive action, and encounters are down 50%. Indeed, encounters are down, but even the lefty American Immigration Council says that Biden’s EO will only drive illegal immigrants to more dangerous crossings to avoid encounters, and no one has those numbers.

He touted his peace in the Middle East plan, which the G7 liked, and claimed Israel and Hamas liked it. However, Slate said there’s almost no chance of success.

At this point, He revealed that he had a list of reporters to call on. We all know this means pre-screened questions. The questions ranged from, “Just how awesome are you?” to “About Kamala though, are you sure?” to “Are you sure you are really ok?”

The first question was about Kamala’s ability to be President if she is at the top of the ticket; he said, “Look, I wouldn’t have picked Vice President Trump to be vice president if I think she’s not qualified to be president.” Yes, you read that right. He called Kamala, Trump. Then, he declared that he had beaten Trump before and that he’d do it again.

The next question, from Danny Kemp, AFP, was about the Zelensky/Putin mix-up earlier and how France and other World leaders have had to cover for him. Doesn’t that weaken America?

His answer - The NATO conference was super successful, and all the other world leaders thanked him, so he’s good. “Look, this is… well.. anyway.”

Nancy Cordes, CBS, asked, “Your own party and friends want you out. What does this mean for your legacy?”

Biden replied, “I’m not in this for my legacy.” We all know that’s a lie! The Hur Report details how Biden illegally kept classified documents from his time as a Senator because he knew one day he would be president and wanted to preserve his legacy. Biden rambled about Trickle-down and his dad. He thinks the economy is growing. Meanwhile, the high interest rates the Fed is using to artificially lower inflation are strangling the consumer, unemployment is up, and the housing bubble is about to burst again, but sure! We’re doing great! Can you feel my eyes rolling yet? Biden then talked about bringing chip manufacturing back to the USA, but that was a TRUMP idea!!! He claimed South Korea is investing $20 billion to build chip factories in the US. But that’s misleading at best. SoKo has created a $19 Billion fund to help its chip makers pivot to processors, but that money is not ALL coming to the US. Instead, one of the companies getting cash from the Korean government will be building a $3.9 billion packaging plant in Indiana. Meanwhile, the US is giving Samsung over $6 Billion to build plants in TX, and we are giving another $75 Million to a different SoKo Company for a plant in GA. Biden keeps creepy-whispering things as he wraps up his meandering answers.

When Felicia Schwartz asked if he would be okay, given the limits he’s acknowledged, Biden got confused until she explained she meant his statements about going to bed at 8, etc.

Biden responded that those statements weren’t true. “What I said was, instead of my every day starting at 7 and going to bed at midnight, it’d be smarter for me to pace myself a lil more. And I said, for example, the 8, 7, 6 stuff. Instead of starting a fundraiser at 9, start at 8, people get to go home by 10.” Then he called the Debate a “stupid mistake” and claimed he’d had a full schedule ever since while Trump is just riding around on his golf carts. He ended by blaming his staff for adding things to his schedule, and that he’s “catching hell from his wife.” He then completely lost his train of thought and struggled to find his place on his list of people to call on.

Zach Miller, AP, asked two questions. The first was about lifting restrictions on the use of US weapons in Ukraine. He also said that Democrats are worried that the President’s “bad night” wasn’t a one-off. Is he really ok?

Biden responded that we’ve allowed him to use our weapons “in the near term and the near abroad into Russia.” After that, he started rambling about how Ukraine hitting the Kremlin in Moscow was a bad idea or something; I’m not sure; it didn’t make sense. He followed that by saying he was following the advice of his “Commander-in-chief, uh, my, uh, chief of staff of the military.”

Then, he couldn’t remember the second question and had to have it repeated. He answered that he knows he’s fine because he’s doing a good job and challenged us all to find any President who’s gotten more major pieces of legislation done in 3 1/2 years. (He’s listed at 14th by a left-leaning group of scholars.) Then, he promptly lost his place on his list again.

Some dude from Polish radio said most of Europe is worried that Trump will win, weaken NATO, and stop supporting Ukraine. He asked if Europe would be on its own if Trump won and what Europe should do to prepare for that.

Biden prattled on about how much the world leaders were fluffing him up during their meetings. He told a story about meeting with Putin and telling him that he was “looking for the Finlandization of Ukraine, but he was going to get the NATOization of Finland.” This doesn’t make sense until you learn that Finlandization is an actual term, meaning a smaller country agrees not to put up a stink about anything its bigger neighbor wants to do, from the late 60s - which is where Biden’s brain still lives most of the time. Then he blathered on more about Finland and Sweden joining NATO, bragged about getting 50 other nations to support Ukraine, and talked about getting Japan and SoKo together.

David Sanger, NYT, asked about the strategy for interrupting the partnership between Russia and China. He also asked, “If you were in a room with Xi or Putin in 3 years, would you be able to handle that?” That’s just a dumb question: what’s Biden supposed to say? No?? Come on.

Biden opined that he’s spent more time with Xi than any other world leader from the time he was VP until now, “And by the way, I handed in all my notes.” This is not the first time he’s used this line. He said that China believes they are large enough to convince any European nation to cut a deal with them, and the world will have to make China hurt economically. He mentioned the Spy Balloon and said that Xi now has a direct line to Biden, and our military has a direct line to theirs. That’s not scary at all. He confused China and Russia, and pivoted to rambling about the need for a new industrialization effort in the West, our falling behind in our ability to construct new weapons, and Europe's need to “increase the capacity to generate the ability to produce their own systems.”

He forgot the last question again; when reminded, he says he’s ready to deal with them now, but he has no reason to talk to Putin and won’t until Putin is ready to change his behavior. Interesting: He won’t talk to Putin over Ukraine but demands Israel talk to Hamas.

Asma Khalid from NPR asked him if he wished he had had anything different in Israel/Hamas.

Biden bragged that he got the aid into Gaza. Then, as he rambled about meeting with Israeli leaders, he reminisced about meeting with Golda Meir back in ‘73; at least this time, he didn’t lie about the meeting. He told Bibi, “Don’t make the mistake we made after Bin Laden. Find the guys who did this, and leave, don’t occupy.” Then he claimed Hamas is not popular in the West Bank anymore. That's just wrong. He said he wants a ceasefire and that his numbers are better in Israel than in the US.

Josh Winegrove, Bloomberg, informed Joe that most Democrats were watching to assess what they wanted to say about Biden's candidacy. He asked if Biden is fully committed to running or if he’s going to see how the next few weeks play out.

“I’m determined, but I think I need to allay fears. For the longest time, Biden’s not prepared to sit with us unscripted, Biden’s not prepa… uh anyway…” Biden said. He stumbled his way through the rest of the answer while bragging about having HQs in the toss-up states, talking about his time in the Senate, and going to the Johnson Library. Then, out of nowhere, he said something about a button that says “Control guns, not girls” and began angry-yelling about kids being killed by bullets. He hollered that Trump says he won’t do anything, and SCOTUS is too conservative, but he can still get things done. Then, as he was winding down, he brought up Project 2025, and said he has to finish the job.

Josh got a follow-up question about taking a cognitive test, to which Biden responded, “I’ve taken three significant and intense neurological exams by a nue-ahhudkfha-ologist.” He then said his staff was talking too much in a vaguely threatening way before getting a perplexed look on his face and rambling about getting SoKo and Japan back together. He ends by saying if his doctor wants him to take a test, he’ll do it. But no matter what, no one will ever be satisfied.

Haley Bull from Scripps got the last official question. With the convention coming up, are your delegates free to pick anyone else?

Biden seemed a bit confused and answered that he had served in the Senate for a long time and understood the importance of the top of the ticket. He said all the chatter was just self-interest on the part of the other Democrats. Biden then told her to look at the polling, thought about it for a second, and asked, “How accurate does anyone think the polls are these days? All the polling says…” before trailing off and sidetracking to say that he’s the best one to govern, and he’s not doing too bad with raising money.

Her follow-up question was a decent one. “If your team told you that Kamala would do better against Trump, would you back out?”

He responded with his trademarked creepy whisper, “No one is saying that.”

At that point, KJP tried to end it, but someone got his attention and told him that earlier, he had called VP Harris “VP Trump,” and Trump was using that to mock his age and competence. “How do you respond?”

“Listen to him.”

Then he walked off.

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Lorraine Yuriar is a wife, mother, and lifelong conservative, currently stuck in a very blue state.