Biden’s High-Stakes Moment: Tonight’s NATO News Conference

Biden’s High-Stakes Moment: Tonight’s NATO News Conference - The New York Times

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Biden’s High-Stakes Moment: Tonight’s NATO News Conference

The president’s allies, doubters and enemies will be watching for any evidence of stumbles as he fields questions from reporters.

Michael D. Shear, Katie Rogers and

Michael D. Shear and Katie Rogers cover the White House and reported from Washington. Michael M. Grynbaum covers the news media and reported from New York.

President Biden will face a moment of high stakes in his campaign for a second term on Thursday evening when he engages with reporters in an unscripted news conference at the end of a three-day NATO summit.

The president’s allies, doubters and enemies will be watching as he fields questions, looking for any evidence that he loses his train of thought, stumbles over his words or lapses into the blank stare that millions of people saw during a debate with former President Donald J. Trump on June 27. Mr. Biden’s performance could either quiet critics or invite a wave of new calls for him to step aside.

How long Mr. Biden remains at the lectern — and how many questions he is willing to field from the press — is another key benchmark of how his performance will be judged. A hasty exit, with journalists calling out after him, could fuel more concerns about Mr. Biden’s stamina and capacity to handle tough questioning.

Just the fact that Mr. Biden agreed to hold the event speaks to the pressure he is facing to prove his contention that the shaky debate was an anomaly. At this point in his term, Mr. Biden has held fewer news conferences than any president since Ronald Reagan. His last solo news conference was eight months ago.

In recent days, he has tried to assure shaken allies that he wants to do more unscripted appearances and interviews, but, beyond an interview with ABC on Friday, he has done little of those in the 14 crucial days since the debate.

The White House is not sharing much about how the president is preparing himself for Thursday’s news conference, which will follow a long day of meetings be carried live on all the major networks.

But an internal White House planning document contained potential questions that touch on Mr. Biden’s age and mental acuity, calls from lawmakers that he should drop out, and his thinking about why he is staying in the race, as well as items on foreign policy related to the summit, according to two people familiar with the document who were not authorized to speak publicly.

In addition, the document contains questions he might be asked about foreign policy and the discussions at the NATO meeting. Current and former aides to Mr. Biden said he is typically provided with a document before a news conference that contains a categorized list of tough questions across a range of topics. Mr. Biden goes over those questions with aides in the days before he appears before reporters.

During his last solo news conference, after a meeting with President Xi Jinping of China in California last year, he fielded a dozen or so questions and the event lasted roughly 20 minutes.

The president made an impromptu appearance with reporters at the White House in February to push back on assertions in a special counsel’s report that he had a poor memory. But while Mr. Biden projected defiance, he also confused the presidents of Mexico and Egypt, a mistake that was aired repeatedly afterward on cable news.

In the days since the debate, Mr. Biden has said he is moving on from what he calls a “bad night,” angrily rejecting the demands for another nominee from people he dismisses as the “elite” in Washington.

On Thursday, he will walk out to a press corps that has expressed increasing frustration at what they deem a lack of transparency from the White House. On Monday, the White House press briefing devolved into shouting as the press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, repeatedly dodged questions about the president’s health, and why a Parkinson’s doctor had made several visits to the White House.

A tense exchange between Ms. Jean-Pierre and the CBS reporter Ed O’Keefe resembled the kind of feisty tête-à-tête that was more common in the Trump administration, when reporters like CNN’s Jim Acosta repeatedly clashed with the press secretary.

On Thursday, reporters are likely to ask about the steady stream of Democratic lawmakers and donors who have said they do not believe that Mr. Biden can defeat former President Donald J. Trump.

Representative Elissa Slotkin, the leading Democratic candidate for an open Senate seat in Michigan, said on Tuesday that Mr. Biden was trailing Mr. Trump in her battleground state, telling donors during a fund-raiser that private polling showed Mr. Trump ahead and the Senate race a tossup.

“Right now, President Biden is behind Trump in all of our polling and this Senate race is in a dead heat,” she said during a video call with donors, according to a clip of the event obtained by The New York Times.

In an interview on MSNBC on Monday morning, Mr. Biden said flatly that “I’m not going to explain any more about what I should or shouldn’t do. I am running. I am running.”

And yet, that declaration is being ignored by some of his most ardent supporters. Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi suggested on Wednesday that he could still change his mind, adding that “we’re all encouraging him to make that decision. Because time is running short.” George Clooney, the actor and big-time Biden donor, called for Mr. Biden to step aside in a deeply critical essay on Wednesday in The New York Times.

“We are not going to win in November with this president,” the actor wrote. “This is the opinion of every senator and Congress member and governor that I’ve spoken with in private. Every single one, irrespective of what he or she is saying publicly.”

Mr. Biden has also scheduled an interview on Monday with the NBC News anchor Lester Holt. The interview, which will be taped in Texas, is set to air on the network in prime time that evening and last no less than 15 minutes.

Michael D. Shear is a White House correspondent for The New York Times, covering President Biden and his administration. He has reported on politics for more than 30 years. More about Michael D. Shear

Katie Rogers is a White House correspondent. For much of the past decade, she has focused on features about the presidency, the first family, and life in Washington, in addition to covering a range of domestic and foreign policy issues. She is the author of a book on first ladies. More about Katie Rogers

Michael M. Grynbaum writes about the intersection of media, politics and culture. He has been a media correspondent at The Times since 2016. More about Michael M. Grynbaum

2024 Elections,

U.S. Politics,

North Atlantic Treaty Organization,

President Joe Biden,

Nancy Pelosi,
George Clooney