US President Joe Biden returned to the campaign trail on Friday, pushing ahead with his re-election campaign after a mixed performance at a major news conference that failed to calm calls for him to resign.
The 81-year-old Trump will deliver a speech in Detroit, Michigan, attacking his rival Donald Trump. This is a crucial electoral state where the Democrats must win in the elections to be held in November.
In a defining speech at a NATO summit on Thursday, Biden insisted he would run for and win re-election — despite concerns about his age and health after a poor performance in a debate two weeks ago.
But a number of gaffes, including referring to Vice President Kamala Harris as “Vice President Trump,” raised questions about Biden’s eligibility for a second term.
Hakeem Jeffries, the top Democrat in the House of Representatives, said he met with Biden late Thursday as the number of members calling on the president to step down grew to 20.
Jeffries said he and Biden “expressed our full insights, heartfelt perspectives and conclusions about the path forward” but provided no further details.
The president has faced persistent calls from Democrats to abandon his 2024 candidacy since the June 27 debate, during which Biden often lost his bearings and appeared exhausted.
But Biden has stubbornly held his ground, insisting he can persuade voters to support him even as most polls show him trailing the criminally convicted, twice-impeached Trump.
“The most qualified”
The campaign event in Detroit is his fourth visit this year to the state, which is part of the industrial “Blue Wall” along with Wisconsin and Pennsylvania that were key to his 2020 victory against his opponent.
Biden’s speech is expected to focus on “Project 2025”, a blueprint drawn up by hardline conservatives for the first days of Trump’s term that Democrats have blamed on the former president, despite the 78-year-old’s denials.
Thursday’s press conference appeared to buy Biden some time, even if it wasn’t a huge blow, as three more lawmakers urged him to step down just minutes after the conference ended.
Biden said he is “the most qualified person to be president,” and rejected calls for him to step down before the Nov. 5 vote.
He acknowledged that he had to “overcome the intimidation” in the Democratic Party and “step up his game a little more”, blaming jet lag and a cold for his poor performance in the debate.
Biden asked a range of questions on foreign and domestic policy, with answers that were broad and vague and relatively few mistakes, though he did cover Europe and Asia.
But there were also some negative moments on Thursday, including the Trump-Harris gaffe and a gaffe at the NATO summit in which he introduced Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky as Russian dictator Vladimir Putin.
Concerns about Biden are also influencing Democratic donors, with Hollywood star and high-profile supporter George Clooney on Wednesday calling on Biden to step down.
Several other major donors have told the biggest Biden campaign fund that about $90 million in donations would be withheld if he continues to contest the election, The New York Times reported Friday.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
