WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden has another chance on Thursday to prove to the American public that he is capable of serving for another four years after leaving office. shocking debate flop the future of his presidency in doubt. But Biden is not known as a master of the big rhetorical moment, and his recent housecleaning efforts have fallen short.
Biden, 81, will close out the election NATO summit in Washington — an event meant to showcase his leadership on the world stage — with a rare solo press conference. His stamina and effectiveness are under scrutiny like never before, and he struggles to The Democratic Party’s Panic about his chances in November.
Biden can point to successes in office on many metrics, from job growth to landmark legislation to the expanded transatlantic alliance. But where he has sometimes failed — spectacularly, in the case of the debate — is in a defining part of the role that isn’t in the official job description: delivering inspiring speeches that command the nation’s attention and respect.
Biden has tried to improve his performance since the debate, but his follow-up interview on ABC Last week was disappointing. Nothing he has tried seems to be stopping the bleeding, with more lawmakers calling for him to resign over concerns he could hand the White House back to former President Donald Trump.
Americans often think less of their leaders for what they do than for how they make them feel, and Biden’s disastrous debate has shaken his party to its core.
“The debate was a reminder that you can pursue as many policies as you want, but what the public sees and hears may be more important,” said Julian Zelizer, the presidential historian at Princeton.
Rhetoric is woven into the fabric of the modern presidency, from Franklin D. Roosevelt’s “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself” to Ronald Reagan’s “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!”
It can inspire in the aftermath of tragedy, like George W. Bush’s megaphone speech from the smoky rubble of Ground Zero, and help a war- and recession-weary nation regain its sense of self-worth, like Barack Obama’s “Yes we can!” Even Donald Trump’s “Make America Great Again” cry reflected the temperament of the agitated nation.
“People saw Trump as a reflection of a more turbulent, chaotic, angry country,” Zelizer said. “Voters may see Biden’s vulnerability as a symbol of weakness or its own kind of instability.”
Biden can give a good speech — his State of the Union address helped calm doubters about his viability as a candidate earlier this year. But his strength as a president and a politician is how his humanity resonated with voters in intimate settings, and the power of his personal story and down-to-earth roots.
Still, such moments, private or for a small audience, are sure to reach fewer people than the tens of millions who watched his fight with Trump, even if they are amplified on social media, as Biden’s team hopes.
Despite calls from some in his party to step aside, Biden has stuck to his guns, insisting he is the best Democrat to defeat Trump, whose candidacy he calls an existential threat to democracy.
His press conference will be closely watched for his ability to think quickly, show his dynamism and make it clear that he is still capable of getting the job done and winning the prize again.
Even before the debate, Biden has often won victories as president, despite his inability to sell them to a skeptical public. Heading into his showdown with Trump, he has historically low approval ratings for an American leader. And he has failed to overcome voters’ pessimism about the direction of the country, with a majority of voters in his own party already believing he is too old to lead the country effectively.
The debate did not help Biden revive the race against Trump, but rather confirmed voters’ pre-existing fears about him, said Allison Prasch, a professor of rhetoric at the University of Wisconsin at Madison who studies presidential communication.
“The president is a symbol,” she said, adding that Americans often look to the president as a mirror to reflect on their hopes and fears.
“You could argue that when you see a president who looks weak and is having trouble carrying out some of the basic duties of the presidency, you have questions about the state of the nation,” she said.
She compared his recent hesitant public comments to his campaign message four years ago.
“In 2020, he promised to be confident in the face of chaos. He said, ‘I am this stable force,’” Prasch said. “When you project yourself that way and you do the opposite in this debate, that’s exactly why this was so shocking to the public.”
Biden’s aides and allies responded to the debate with a series of public statements defending Biden’s mental health and fitness for the job, focusing on the White House’s big decisions rather than his ability to communicate them to the masses.
“I have seen no reason to question or challenge his clarity, his understanding of context, his investigative nature, the extent to which he has full command of the facts and figures,” White House National Security spokesman John Kirby said Monday.
Brett McGurk, the White House coordinator for the Middle East and North Africa and a veteran of four administrations, said he has never had concerns about Biden’s decision-making.
Speaking about Biden, he told The Associated Press: “I’ve never seen a president who wasn’t prepared, who wasn’t deliberate, who didn’t ask tough questions of the crowd or of a foreign leader,” adding that Biden “sometimes makes decisions that are often difficult decisions, and then he actually carries them out.”
While Biden and his team have made a concerted effort since the debate to boost his public profile — which has been limited by aides concerned about Biden’s propensity for gaffes or missteps — he has proven to be erratic and at times disappointing.
Campaigning in Pennsylvania on SundayBiden gave less than 10-minute speeches at a church in Philadelphia and a rally in Harrisburg, but spent three times that amount of time taking selfies and hugging children — the kind of feel-good content that has always bolstered his political fortunes.
A phone interview with MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” Biden’s defiance and distaste for party “elites” showed when he vowed to stay in the race. In his opening speech at the NATO summit, Biden was forceful in his defense of the alliance.
“The more he campaigns with voters, the greater the contrast and the easier the choice will be for those voters: between Joe Biden, a decent man who fights for the middle class and a deranged billionaire like Trump who wants to end the ACA and turn our country into a dictatorship,” said campaign spokesman Kevin Munoz, referring in part to the Affordable Care Act.
But when asked in the ABC interview how he would feel if his candidacy returned the White House to Trump, he gave a garbled and uninspiring answer: “I’ll feel like as long as I’ve done everything I can and I’ve done the best job I can, that’s what matters.”
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AP journalist Colleen Long contributed to this report.
