(Bloomberg) — President Joe Biden’s news conference at the NATO summit amounts to a make-or-break moment in his quest to quiet a drumbeat of concerns at home and abroad about his 2024 presidential campaign.
Biden was dealt fresh blows Thursday, as the New York Times reported that some of the president’s advisers have discussed ways to persuade him to step down as the nominee and that his campaign was polling voters on a hypothetical head-to-head matchup between Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris.
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Later, at an event on the sidelines of the NATO summit, Biden drew gasps when he mistakenly identified Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy as Russian President Vladimir Putin while introducing him to the stage. While the US president subsequently corrected himself, saying Zelenskiy would “beat President Putin,” the gaffe was quickly highlighted by Republicans on social media and further underscored Biden’s propensity for verbal missteps.
Those developments will only intensify persistent doubts from party members about his ability to defeat Trump in November and serve another four years, despite a weeks-long effort to shore up support. Biden’s top political advisers met with senators on Capitol Hill Thursday afternoon in a bid to calm lawmakers who have spent recent days all but pushing Biden to consider dropping out of the race.