Visit our website:
http://www.france24.com
Like us on Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/FRANCE24.English
Follow us on Twitter:
https://twitter.com/France24_en
Category
đź—ž
NewsTranscript
00:00Joe Biden's political future is overshadowing the NATO summit that's on now in Washington.
00:06Concerns about the president's fitness for a second term in office and his ability to
00:09beat Donald Trump have been swirling ever since last month's disastrous debate performance.
00:15More and more Democrats publicly saying now Joe Biden has to step aside, including Peter
00:20Welsh, the first Senate Democrat to do so.
00:23On Wednesday, the actor and celebrity donor George Clooney wrote an op-ed for The New
00:28York Times saying he thinks the president should leave the race as well.
00:32For the very latest on this, let's bring in our Washington correspondent, Fraser Jackson.
00:36Fraser, what started out as a trickle from just a few Democrats a while back asking Biden
00:40to step aside is getting stronger and stronger as the days go by.
00:47Joe Biden wasn't really paying attention to the few Democratic lawmakers in the House
00:51when they expressed their concerns, but I think these new people coming out against
00:56him will hold more weight.
00:58The first Senate Democrat to say that he can't beat Donald Trump and that he should drop
01:04out of the race was quite a big moment, it must be said.
01:07And then, of course, there was the interview early on Wednesday morning with Nancy Pelosi,
01:11somebody who holds a lot of weight in the Democratic Party and someone who is a decades-old
01:15friend of Joe Biden as well.
01:17I think it's fair to say that if Joe Biden loses the support of people like Nancy Pelosi,
01:22people like Chuck Schumer, Hakeem Jeffries, the big wigs of the Democratic Party, then
01:27it will be hard to see how his campaign will continue.
01:31We're now basically waiting to see whether this is going to be a case of death by 1,000
01:34cuts.
01:35Is it going to be a slow drip, or has Nancy Pelosi's refusal to take a stand one way or
01:41another started to open the floodgates for more Democrats to come out and say how they
01:46truly feel?
01:47That is one aspect of it, but then you look at the donor class as well, people like George
01:51Clooney, who wrote that op-ed in The New York Times.
01:53Some may say, well, he's just a Hollywood actor, but he is quite a big donor to the
01:57Democratic Party.
01:58That fundraiser he held for Joe Biden raised $28 million for Joe Biden's campaign.
02:03And he said that the Joe Biden that was at that fundraiser was not the Joe Biden of 2010.
02:07It wasn't the Joe Biden of 2020.
02:09It was the same Joe Biden that we saw at the debate two weeks ago.
02:13Now, the White House will say that that was around the same time that Joe Biden was preparing
02:17for the debate.
02:18He just came back from two trips to Europe with a quick stop back in the U.S. in between,
02:22and then went back nine hours in time zones.
02:24So they'll probably say that he was tired and jet-lagged and had a bad cold, all the
02:28reasons that they gave for the poor debate performance as well.
02:31But whether that holds water remains to be seen.
02:34So later today, President Biden will really be fighting for his political life, giving
02:38this solo press conference, the first one since the debate.
02:42I mean, that's a lot of pressure for anyone, much less an 81-year-old president who's probably
02:47very tired.
02:48Yes, the debate performance has been trying to be rewritten by the Biden campaign and
02:54by the White House.
02:55They've given him multiple unscripted events in the wake of that.
02:58He had a couple of campaign stops last weekend.
03:01He also had the interview with ABC on Friday last week as well.
03:06But to be honest, it must be said, I think the White House is missing an opportunity
03:09here to flood the zone, as they like to say.
03:11If they got Biden out more, this wouldn't be such a pivotal press conference.
03:16But it has now been bigged up to such a degree that realistically, everybody will be watching
03:20what Joe Biden will be doing and what he will be saying as well.
03:23We expect this press conference to be just him.
03:26It's going to be the U.S. press and those who follow him closely.
03:29We're expecting about six to seven people to ask him questions.
03:33And we're expecting, therefore, this to go on maybe about 30 minutes or so.
03:36It must be said, this is the first press conference that Joe Biden has holding solo since November
03:412022.
03:43So that shows how pivotal this moment could be in persuading people one way or another.
03:48Because so far, what he's done has really failed to move the needle.
03:51After this as well, he's also got a big interview on Monday on NBC with Lester Holt.
03:56Another opportunity for him perhaps to get his message out there.
03:58Some say that he needs to stop being on the defense and go on the offense and start attacking
04:02Donald Trump and his record.
04:04And that may be trying to put this behind him and stem the bleeding.
04:06All right, Fraser, thanks for that.
04:08Fraser Jackson there reporting live from Washington.