Rarely have so many Americans been glued to a Nato livestream for so long. By the time Joe Biden walked out onto the stage for his press conference at the end of the alliance’s summit in Washington on 11 July, the appearance was being billed as a make-or-break test for his re-election campaign. It turned out to be neither.
Before the main event had even started, the US president was in trouble. Standing alongside his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky earlier that afternoon, Biden had introduced him as “President Putin.” As he walked away from the microphone, he realised his mistake and attempted to correct it.
“President Putin?” he said. “We’re going to beat President Putin. President Zelensky, I’m so focused on beating Putin, we got to worry about it.
” Zelensky tried to laugh it off, replying, “I’m better.” Biden began the news conference – his first such event in eight months – by reading, or more accurately, half-yelling around eight minutes of prepared remarks from an autocue. In between listing his accomplishments, he repeatedly paused to clear his throat.
Then he took the first question and mixed up Kamala Harris and Donald Trump. “Look, I wouldn’t have picked Vice President Trump to be vice-president did I think she was not qualified to be president,” he said. Later he referred to the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff – the nation’s highest-ranked military officer – as “my commander in chief”, which is Biden’s jo.
